Tesla Made Their Best-Selling Car Even Better. But Thanks to Elon Musk's Behavior, Will Anyone Want To Buy It?
There are a lot of downsides to a product becoming a political statement.
Over the weekend, I had a chance to drive the new Tesla Model Y. It’s the refresh of the brand’s flagship SUV, which in 2023 overtook the Toyota Corolla as the world’s best-selling car.
As a past Tesla owner and current rival brand Electric Vehicle (EV) owner, I was able to compare the refreshed model to the outgoing ones.
While the exterior design is subjective (I like the front, less so the back), I’d say the interior updates make the car objectively better.
Thanks to newly-installed acoustic glass that wraps around the cabin, it’s a much quieter car. It rides softer. The steering wheel and cabin feel more premium. It has longer range. It has a screen in the back so that passengers can watch YouTube or any number of Tesla streaming options. And it does all this while being no more expensive than the outgoing model.
I’d say Teslas’s engineers have done an excellent job making the car more attractive as competitors like China’s BYD have been overtaking it in some regions of the world (the front design is very similar to many Chinese cars, which may be intentional.)
But my question is: will any of this even matter? Here’s a smattering of headlines that should make Tesla bulls unhappy:
- 'Unprecedented Slide': Tesla Sales Plummet 45% In Europe As Musk's Net Worth Dives $5.2B In A Week
- Tesla Stock Is Down As Musk's DOGE Role Changes Some Buyers' Minds
- BYD and its rivals are crushing Tesla in China — and they're going global
- Chinese rival overtakes Tesla as Britain turns against Musk
- BYD outsells Tesla and Toyota to conquer Singapore in 2024
- Tesla Used Car Price Crashes—Model Y And Model 3 Deals Explode
In some markets, there are factors not related to CEO Elon Musk that could be leading to these dire sales numbers for Tesla. The company has long lagged behind in China, for instance.
But at least across the West, most observers are pointing at one man — Musk — as the reason why sales are plummeting. Across EV forums, you see posts from users who are looking to sell their Teslas and move into another brand. There have even been protests popping up outside Tesla salesrooms, which embody an unprecedented backlash against an auto company.
The backlash is spurred by Musk’s increasing involvement in partisan politics. Not only has he become one of the largest donors to the Republican Party, but he has become the face of unpopular cuts to government programs.
In Musk’s mind, the unpopularity may be worth it. He has never had the kind of political and social power he does today. What’s billions off of his net worth when he has a direct line to the President of the United States?
But for Musk’s firms and their employees, that may be cold comfort. Tesla fired a long-time employee who repeatedly raised concerns about Musk’s erratic and often bigoted social media presence, but that employee was sounding the alarm about behavior that is harming the workforce.
It would not be surprising if Tesla moved to lay off employees to compensate for declining sales — even though the reason for those declining sales is not middle managers but the man at the top.
When a firm or industry becomes political, the damage is deep. If you have a hard time relating to how liberals feel about Tesla now, you should try to remember how conservatives felt about the NFL when Colin Kaepernick began his kneeling protests. Or how conservatives (and many other people) felt when every large firm in America started embracing Black Lives Matter messaging in the Summer of 2020.
Going partisan may be especially toxic for Musk’s firms because EV buyers are left-leaning. EV skeptics are right-leaning. Musk’s many social media missives every week demonizing progressives is demonizing his own customer base.
Would I still consider a Tesla in the future? Probably. It’s a good car for a decent price — although I will say that most of the competition has better build quality than Tesla does these days.
But you can’t blame someone for not wanting their car to become a partisan political statement that they drive around everywhere and advertise.
Laura Ingraham once told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” because she didn’t like his political stands.
If Musk cares about the welfare of his employees and his brands, it might be worth at the very least toning down the trolling online. Maybe it’s time for him to shut up and work.
It's a very old lesson. Carmakers have often named cars after a living figure, only to have the figure die or turn scandalous instead of popular. Tying to the founder is even worse. The only exception is Henry Ford. The Model T was so universally popular that Henry's antics didn't matter much. When you sell half of all cars in the world for 20 years, the car becomes a generic necessity like bread or soap. Tesla is nowhere near that level, and its fans were mostly in love with Elon's former image as a progressive environmentalist.
An interesting article.
What program has been cut that was truly beneficial, versus portrayed that way in the meda?
USAID was a CIA slush fund that I haven't seen a single person *outside the US* bemoan the loss of (if loss it even is as it's just been folded back into the state department, which means it will likely be business as usual, just not with perhaps the virtue-signaling trappings).
CFPB? Started out promising but then was gutted. Did it have potential? Hell, yes. Was it actually making a meaningful difference? Eh . . . not really, not from what I can see. All the articles talk about what it was *going* to do, not what it was doing. That's a game I've seen before.
Medicaid? Maybe cut, maybe not. The specifics are never really clearly stated. They were supposed to cut *up to* $880 billion, not "at least," which leaves a lot of wiggle room. So we'll see.
But here's what I find funny: why all this concern? It's hardly like Elon Musk is the only EV manufacturer. Don't like him, don't like his product, go elsewhere. And the sudden concern for the welfare of Tesla workers from people who ten minutes ago could not be bothered to consider the effects of immigration or outsourcing on the workforce at large but now so invested you all are . . . odd that.
It's almost like . . . now don't call me jaded . . . but you find Musk's statements offensive or inconvenient and you want some reason to shut him up. In other words, it's almost like you are sanctioning people being punished for their ideas. There's no conversation here about how this whole situation might say more about where America is as a society than where Elon Musk is, no not that. We wouldn't want to hold up a mirror to society and point out its hypocrisies.
For the record, I never cared about the kneeling. I mean, I find it laughable that Colin Kaepernick who is only "black" if he grows out his hair and was a second tier player at best and got seven figures for it, was acting as if he was getting waterhosed and the dogs set on him in the Jim Crow South for sitting at the front of the bus, but whatever? I still watch movies and I think Hollywood has lost its mind. I shop at Target and I find "tuck friendly swimsuits" nauseating and can't figure out who thought that display was good idea. So Elon Musk runs his mouth on TwiX and donates to Republican causes and supports Trump. If you're not going to buy a Tesla because of that? That's your decision, but don't make the mistake of thinking that giving into childish tantrums is being an adult. It's not. It's just being a slightly larger child yourself. And that's what our society as a whole has become, a slightly larger but still incredibly immature child.