State Department reveals plan to buy $400m in ‘armored’ Teslas in biggest contract of 2025
State Department reveals plan to buy $400m in ‘armored’ Teslas in biggest contract of 2025
As Musk continues to gut government agencies, his company prepares to rake in big federal bucks
I'm gonna leave this up because people are commenting on it, but IMO it's borderline off-topic. This is an article about political corruption in Federal procurement, and only incidentally mentions cars because they happen to be the item being procured. Try to stick a little closer to "problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all" next time.
Edit: I just noticed that the person who posted this is the other mod, LOL. I guess we should have a chat to make sure we're on the same page re: rule 4.
I dunno, there isn't much more "fuck cars" than this particular "fuck these cars". Thanks for leaving it up either way.
there isn’t much more “fuck cars” than this particular “fuck these cars”.
On the contrary, I believe that in a lot of cases (not necessarily this case, but others) trying to single out particular kinds of cars to oppose is a divide-and-conquer tactic by car-apologists. If they get us frothing about 'swastikars' (or, more often, 'bro-dozers') in particular, they distract us from e.g. the fact that all cars, even down to the humblest hatchback economy car, take up the same amount of space (1 parking space each) and thus contribute equally to things like driving demand for subsidized parking and wrecking walkability. I see the fuck cars movement as being about the detrimental effect car dependency has on urbanism, climate change, public health, etc. in a macro sense, not hate for cars as individual devices.
In other words, I think "particular 'fuck these cars'" is 100% missing the point of "fuck cars."
I want to offer that cars have always involved government corruption. The invention of jaywalking, the corrupt development of the highways for "national security" while simultaneously hampering development of real public transit, the wars started for fuel, the extrajudicial killings of people threatening the fossil fuel industry with electric cars (historically), political corruption is the life blood of cars.
Its deeper than that, too. The nazis tried to ban bicycles in the netherlands going as far as confiscating them to melt them down.
The superior yield for corruption in the procurement of fleets of cars for a State seems like a Fuck Cars issue to me.
I mean, I can see how there could be corruption in the procurement of State Bicycles or State Employee Walking Shoes, but the values involved would be way lower.
And this is without going into the whole point made by somebody else that Governments having and using fleets of cars (especially State officials) incentivises them to have pro-car policies.
You can try to pretend that this has nothing to do with car dependency. But try to imagine this story happening with bicycles. The state completely supports the car con. We wouldn't be in this situation otherwise. This story is an excellent and important example.
Car dependency is an issue and a major one in the US, but this is almost completely separate. It's all about the blatant corruption of the president's leashholder's company getting a sweet contract that's actually trash for the government because Cybertrucks just plain suck even if you love cars.
The president literally put Musk in charge of reducing government spending.. And then while people are getting laid off left and right, his company is getting a 400M contract for something it hasn't even made to any real scale, whereas plenty of other companies have: armored cars.
Wow, you're an asshole. People post fucking images of text all the time, and you do nothing.
Someone posts a link to an actual on topic article from a credible source and you say you almost ban it.
How about actually cleaning up all the low effort crap posted here? That's where you should be focusing your efforts.
Weigh down a vehicle who's performance harshly degrades as weight is added, and put it on the battlefield when those batteries have a habit of catching fire.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!
The State Department handles diplomacy. I would expect that the intention is for US diplomats (however many are left after all this) to drive around in these things. I'm sure that will help convince other countries that the US is not at all stupidly corrupt.
I'm just hoping they don't have to tow anything....
I do!
The sooner it is a shit show the sooner I get to laugh about it.
Who could have possibly foreseen this level of corruption happening?
I mean, other than anyone with 2 or more brain cells to rub together.
I mean, I expected corruption. I didn't expect this level of corruption.
On the bright side, that 400m might not be worth much after they're done with the economy. Wait... fuck.
In the future that would be the price of apartment rent per month.
That was naive of you.
Even my orange tabby cat could see it coming.
And it's ORANGE!!
Hehehe I love tabbies. :D
There has always been lots of Corruption in the US (IMHO), but now there is also a feeling of impunity and no shame, so both more Corruption and it being done in more visible ways.
Yeah at least before imwe were placated with "Tsk tsk! How could you? Time to respectfully step down and hang your head in embarrassment!"
Now they just shrug at us and go "LOL do something about it. Dare you. Thought so. LOL."
Another handout for Musk. Not to mention all the repairs those pieces of trash will need.
Repairs? Hah! That'd be logical!
We know already these things are like rolling Chromebooks. Meant to be constructed cheaply, fall apart quickly, to get regularly thrown into a landfill and replaced as "service."
...Then they try to turn around and do the whole greenwashed "EVs save the planet" marketing thing.
Oh, so kids don't deserve an education but we need to blow money on obviously defective bullshit from the de facto president's company.
That screenshot is fantastic. It captures multiple broken promises at once. The unbreakable windows work great and the starting price miraculously doubled.
This is it. Welcome to all-out, blatant oligarchy. Ready to donate your last food stamps so the State Department goons get to wear brand new swastika shirts?
Carl’s Jr. — Fuck you, I’m eating.
Oh jeez, just shove it into your face in front of everyone why don't ya.
Fucking corrupt bastards.
Woah, hold up. I thought the government said All EVs are bad and we should stick to gas. Now Tesla EVs are okay? Oh, the hypocrisy! /s
I hate this timeline.
So we can't have a consumer protection agency but we can spend half a billion on shitty cars
1 Billion stolen from the department of education.
half a billion in food/aid they refused to deliver that went bad.
half a billion to this fuck's pocket.
Now that's peak government efficiency. Directly in his pockets.
The state exists to serve capital.
Half the joke is in how none of these vehicles will get delivered.
Musk's only penned in by his own limited vision, though. This could easily have been $400B. Next time I'm sure he'll aim bigger.
The silver lining is that the deathtraps will end up killing cops
So that's why they were cutting the budget. It's so they could afford all these new cars.
Wow, what a stunning coincidence! The State Department, those champions of transparency and accountability, just happen to have an arms deal for $400 million worth of 'armored' Teslas from none other than Elon Musk. How convenient for the billionaire entrepreneur who's been quietly gutting government agencies left and right. It's not like he has a vested interest in lining his pockets with taxpayer dollars or anything.
Meanwhile, our so-called leaders are too busy patting themselves on the back for their 'fiscal responsibility' to notice the glaring favoritism at play here. The Cybertruck, that tech-savvy publicity stunt gone wrong, just happens to tick all the boxes for the feds' needs. It's like it was designed specifically with their corrupt wallets in mind.
Let's be real folks, this 'gift' from Elon Musk is nothing more than a cash injection into his already overflowing bank account. The State Department's official story is a thinly veiled attempt to whitewash the deal as some sort of public service. But we're not buying it (pun intended). This is just another example of crony capitalism and corruption in action.
Please use one of these vehicles as the presidential limo
We can get a very funny timeline 🤭
Where the panels fall off from looking at it, the accelerator gets stuck down, and it spontaneously bursts into flames?
Yeah I agree. 😂
Quid pro quo
Is this a bailout?
Would be a shame if they all happen to spontaneously combust at once. It'd be some pretty fireworks at least!
@toaster lol. Got warehouses full of steel tanks? Checkout this one weird trick to make it through the next quarterly report.
Nailed it.
May every single one explode with a high ranking official inside.
Great … tanks that blow themselves up.
Now this is the corruption that we thought we would be getting not the dumb shit with the Treasury dept
I wonder if they can survive metal balls :3
We knew this was coming. Hopefully the shitty engineering comes back to bite them.
Apparently this is being disputed. Biden started the ball rolling about getting an armoured EV fleet. Sounds like some document said Tesla on it but now it doesn’t.
Yep, seems like the posted headline jumped the gun
This is like the PPE contracts in the UK during COVID. Don't the people realise they're being robbed in broad daylight?