On Tesla:

Balancing sustainable car connectivity, silent lethality and luxury surveillance

Abstract

This article analyses the increasingly influential role of tech companies in designing and deploying smart surveillance
in private vehicles. Using the case of Tesla, a company that makes optimistic promises and has a hopeful vision for more
sustainable electric cars by decreasing the ecological footprint, the article will discuss the problematic aspects of artificial
intelligence, big data and algorithms for total surveillance by private companies. In particular, light will be shed on the
issue of discourses on sustainable and smart vehicles that dim the light on the problematic aspects of luxury surveillance.
As will be made clear, Tesla’s green and lean – aspirational – ambitions through different technological and surveillance
advancements revive old forms of control and introduce a new set of power/knowledge relations. Beyond the question
of privacy and personal data harvesting, this article discusses the wider social and political consequences of smart car
luxury surveillance by private companies such as Tesla.