Not all Teslas have mechanical latches on all doors. Specifically some Model Ys don't have them on the rear doors, apparently. (This is addressed in the article.) ¹
The mechanical latches have often been panned on the safety front because they're inobviously located and operated. Point 4 addresses this further, but look at the instructions for the rear door in the Model Y in particular.¹ This is complex and confusing without panic and adrenaline. (This too was addressed in the article.)
Not everybody knows about the mechanical latches. While one could argue that the driver should know their vehicle, what makes you think the passengers are going to know this, especially given the poor placement of the latches. Especially given just how convoluted the rear door releases are. (This was also addressed in the article.)
When people are in mortal danger, figuring out complicated things, or remembering obscure things like where the manual release latches are, is not going to happen. If the control to open the door isn't open, obvious, and in your face, you will not remember it unless you've been specifically trained to have this in your immediate-recall memory. That's why pilots of aircraft spend so much time drilling the same thing over and over again. Or people in militaries. Or people in emergency services like fire departments. (This was addressed in the article as well.)
Control doesn't make money making easier when that control destroys the economy. It turns out productivity drops when people are treated like shit. You can see that happening at Twitter and Facebook both, for example.
But you're right that this is about control. It's just that it isn't necessarily about the money except insofar as having a lot of money gives you a lot of control. Shitlords like the Apartheid Manchild or Harvard's Robot wouldn't care if they lost money … as long as everybody else lost more.
The first Democrat run saw a stunning rise of 66% in the highest marginal tax rate due to the insane expense of WWI.
The first Republican run saw a drop of 48% as the nation moved away from the war economy and into the post-war economy.
The second Democrat run saw a sharp rise of 38% at the beginning and a further rise of 28% by the end of their run because of the Great Depression and WWII in that order.
The second Republican run kept the ultra-high (91%!) highest marginal tax rate during the post-war boom with no change.
The third Democrat run saw the rate fall by 21% over its span.
The third Republican run kept the rate as-is over its span.
The fourth Democrat run (single-term) kept the rate as-is over its span.
The fourth Republican run dropped the rate by 39%
The fifth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 9% over its span.
The fifth Republican run saw a drop of almost 5% over its span.
The sixth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 5% over its span.
The sixth Republican run saw a drop of almost 3% over its span.
The final Democrat run (and the last data I have) saw no change.
If we factor out the war years (up to the end of the second Democrat run) we don't see a huge pattern of differences in tax rates, given that those are the highest marginal tax rates and people in that bracket tend to have many ways to evade taxes. (Apartheid Manchild recently complain/bragged that he paid an amount of taxes that turned out to be 3-4% of his income where the vast majority of people pay well over 11% of their incomes, for example.)
So I doubt it's money. It's something else.
Other interesting notes that pop out at me:
the Great Depression happened in 1929 under Republicans (~3.5 years)
the recession of 1937 was under Democrats (~1 year)
the recession of 1949 was under Democrats (~1 year)
the recession of 1953 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
the recession of 1958 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
the recession of 1960 was under Democrats (~¾ years)
the recession of 1969 was under Republicans (~1 year)
the recession of 1973 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
the recession of 1980 was under Republicans (~½ years)
the recession of 1981 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
the recession of 1990 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
the recession of 2001 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
the Great Recession happened in 2007 under Republicans (extending into Democrats) (~1.5 years)
Here I see a distinct pattern that should alarm anybody running a business since lost sales account far more for lost wealth than alterations in the highest marginal tax rate.
Before that event Apartheid Manchild was a dick, but mostly of the poorly-socialized technonerd variety. Still a dick, but not perceived by most as being a threatening dick.
After that event, where he coined (to my knowledge) the phrase "the woke mind virus", he jumped deep into the MAGA swill.
Before that event he was kinda/sorta hailed as a "real world Tony Stark" but never really particularly accepted. People liked his products (well, let's be honest: product) and otherwise didn't give much of a shit about him.
After he went Full Metal MAGAt he became the object of worship and adoration of fellow MAGAts on Twitter (before he bought it, even), getting the uncritical acceptance he'd always craved and never really got.
And it turns out he wants to feel like he "belongs" more than he wants to sell shit.
Also, whether something is “extreme” or not depends on someone’s background context, and I would definitely say that the content on lemmy.ml is considered somewhat extreme for someone on America.
Weirdly, I find a lot of the content on America-centric sources (not just in Lemmy) to be pretty damned extreme myself. Like the casual assumption that guns are the right way to deal with all problems. (Slightly exaggerated, yes, but sadly only slightly.)
My point is that there's nothing specifically objectionable about .ml (to me, obviously). There's many instances out there, after all, and all of them are at some risk or another form over- (or under-)zealous moderation. If a community is on .ml and seems to be valuable I'll go to it, unlike, say, a community on a hypothetical instance called youngnazisforfreedom.sieg.heil or whatever. If the moderation causes issues, I'll switch to a community (or make another community) on another instance.
THAT is to me the principle of the Fediverse: the ability to choose and to move on at need or will.
You know, before lecturing me you might want to check out which instance I'm coming in from.
I said "I don't have issues with .ml" ... but I'm not coming in from a .ml account. So when I say "I have no issues with .ml" it's in the context of the original question: do I refrain participating if the community is hosted on .ml.
¹ From https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html "Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors."