@pdxsag on Tesla's China-only recall of whompy suspensions

Our friend @pdxsag writes in with some thoughts about the recall - only in China - of Tesla Model S and X vehicles with "whompy" suspensions:

I don’t think NHTSA wants to be seen as playing second fiddle to China on the world stage, like the FAA was, but two smoldering craters is kind of hard to ignore. Ball joints on a legacy model that is all but out of production is easy to ignore.

Backing up, obviously over-priced story stocks are avalanches waiting to happen where you never know what is going to be the event that sets off the cascade, but this has the potential to be “it.”

This is where the Ben Hunt interview on TC helped me to understand how group thinking about frauds goes… I forget exactly how Ben put it, but basically there’s a fiction where everyone knows, everyone knows, but there is tacit agreement to pretend everyone doesn't know, until something comes along to prick the bubble and they have to switch from pretending to not pretending. (This is the Naked Emperor story. Autists think it is about having the courage to be the boy. It’s really about Empaths' ability to operate in face of an obvious lie.)

So, a Model S recall could be that prick. It comes down to i) "everybody knows” Elon is protected ii) if Elon is not protected, Tesla is toast iii) a recall signifies Elon has lost his protection.

The question really is: does a Model S recall in China cause "everyone” to believe iii).

In isolation, I don’t think so. But if one of two things happen, I think it would. 1) If US recall is so obviously and overwhelmingly expensive it would mean Elon has lost his protection. Or 2) If a recall on the ball joints is followed by additional recalls that would mean Elon has lost his protection.

Tesla could be gone in any given day.