Yep, feels a lot like that submarine that got crushed trying to get to the Titanic a year or two ago. It made the entire marine industry look worse, and other companies making submarines were concerned it would hurt their business.

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VTimofeenko 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Inb4: not remotely in the marine field, so a genuine question. Would it really make an impact?

Robotaxis market is much broader than the submersibles one, so the effect of consumers' irrationality would be much bigger there. I'd expect an average customer of the submarines market to do quite a bit more research on what they're getting into.

	▲	mikkupikku 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Having the whole world meming on rich dudes in submarines could plausibly make the whole industry seem less cool to people with the money to buy even a good submarine. Imagine being a rich dude with a new submarine and everybody you talk to about it snickers about you getting crushed like Stockton. Maybe you'd just buy a bigger yacht and skip the submarine, which you were probably only buying for the cool factor in the first place...

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toomuchtodo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The difference is the OceanGate Titan failure only harmed those who didn't do their due diligence and the grossly negligent owner. The risk was contained to those who explicitly opted in. In this case, Tesla Robotaxis harm others to keep Tesla's valuation and share price propped up. The performance art is the investor relations.