I had pre-ordered a Model 3 way back (ended up not buying it since they didn't come out with the "cheap version" until years later) and was planning to eventually get a Tesla after my ICE car taps out.
Then it first slowly (never criticizing China or Russia), then quickly (making fun of Ukraine, going full MAGA) and eventually full steam (promoting Germany's anti-democratic far right AfD, the salute) it dawned on me that Elon doesn't give a damn about democracy (he is in fact throwing all his weight behind undermining it across the West).
I care a lot about it, even if it may mean slower progress in some aspects (say compared to China); a system for non-violent regime change is a precious, happy accident of history that's worthwhile defending.
Democrats either already own EV's or will buy EV's anyway. The open question is does EV adoption go up among Republicans. I think it will, though I don't know to what extent.
In general, I find surveys or self-reported data to be poor predictors of behavior.
There are other EVs on the market. Much more reliable ones too. I’m actually amazed they’ve managed to pull off being the least reliable used car, given that the “competitors” have a lot more moving parts:
Tesla competitors. Giving fuel to the broader market, decreasing Tesla's market share, and calling into question the bull case for Tesla's highly inflated P/E ratio.
If the thought is this is more favorable for the Tesla brand based on Elon’s actions, I argue no. Republicans, based on the data, were not enthusiastic to begin with for EVs (77% indicating they were not likely to buy an EV). Also, based on the income and wealth data for right leaning households, I would be cautious to assume they have the purchasing power for what Tesla’s market segment offers.
Trump seems to be somewhat anti-EV (or, at least, doesn't want to push them in the same way Biden did), so it wouldn't surprise me if Republicans took their cues from him and stayed away.
I think you are likely correct. Marketing for Green can only get you so far, next marketing push is Patriotism. I don’t like Musk, but he is a marketing genius of this era.
I think the myth of Elon's genius has been utterly shattered by the Path of Exile 2 debacle. Turns out faking it until you make it can take you all the way to the top.
It was more like “No thanks, I vote for crazy.” I swing right on a lot of things (I voted against democrats in local/state races), but I couldn’t fathom how anyone would see a second trump term as anything more than the chaotic mess the last one was.
Tesla, as a car company, keeps botching basic car company stuff. Reliability. Parts. Repair. Pricing. New models.
- The Model 3 came out in 2017, which was a while back. The Model S did get a mid-cycle refresh.
- The Cybertruck has been a dud. Sales are way down.[1] Rivian apparently outsells it.
- By now, Tesla's Fake Self Driving isn't fooling anybody, now that people have seen Waymo really doing it.
- Tesla is behind in batteries. They can now make round lithium-ion cells, the previous generation of technology. The current generation is more like BYD's "blade" battery, packaged up in rectangular modules. The next generation is fully solid state batteries, which CATL, BYD, Toyota, and Samsung are spending billions to make work. Tesla does not seem to be active in that area, beyond lab efforts.
- China is getting rather good at making electric cars cheaply. It's not all labor cost. It's partly better design.
BYD's "e-axle" is a unit with wheels, axles, differential, and motor. Plugs into a power electronics box and a battery. Plug in a CANbus cable to the controls and go. Simplifies manufacturing.
- Tesla has repeatedly failed to get their costs down. Sales are down. Profits are down.
- The CEO is not devoting full time to the job.
These are all classic car-company mismanagement problems. There are points in GM, Chrysler, and VW history like that.
Tesla likes to pretend they are a special snowflake, but they haven't been that for over a decade.
> The Model 3 came out in 2017, which was a while back. The Model S did get a mid-cycle refresh.
The Model 3 got a refresh last year
> Tesla is behind in batteries. They can now make round lithium-ion cells, the previous generation of technology. The current generation is more like BYD's "blade" battery, packaged up in rectangular modules.
Tesla uses other people’s (usually Panasonic[1]) batteries, they manufacture them, but don’t develop them on their own. In China and Europe, they even use BYD’s blade batteries.[2]
Musk just announced Tesla will have self-driving Real Soon Now. Again.[1]
"Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June in Austin," Musk said. "This is not some far-off mythical situation. It's literally five, six months away."
Oh no doubt that’s not coming to people in the next 5-10 years.
They’ll release whatever half baked thing they have in Austin, because Musk controls the government now and then when it kills a couple of people, they’ll roll it back with no consequences.
At this point, it’s more likely that AGI will emerge first and be able to drive on its own than FSD unsupervised being ready.
In short, tesla is not viewed as favorably as other car companies. And in the end, what they offer isn’t much differentiated from competitors that offer similar products.
Still going strong with the Asian tech crowd, from what I see in the Bellevue (Seattle) area. We don’t care about politics (or we actually like Elon), and we don’t have many white friends that shame us about our cars. We just want dependable cars that have minimal maintenance. There aren’t that many of us though and we tend to keep our cars for a very long time.
Tesla’s drivetrain and battery longevity is unmatched compared to legacy auto, but non powertrain reliability issues and repair times are legitimate points.
I think you're correct about the market skepticism: there simply isn't enough long-term real world data to know how long an electric car's battery (the critical piece) or integrated systems will last.
There's also the issue of rapid technological advancement, like in the smartphone/computer early days. We're still learning about the fundamentals, eg. battery composition, the seller pays for the risk the same dollar gets more (and better) miles.
I'm quite confident ICE will very soon be a niche power source, I will boldly say the tipping point is 2030 :)
On most modern vehicles, the body rusts out, the suspension sags, the paintwork calls it quits and the trim falls apart well before the powertrain dies.
Am Seattle-based Tesla owner, using the same Model X I bought in early 2018 with FSD the HW3 retrofit - right before Elon started going off the deep end…
It’s been almost 7 years and I’ve spent a grand total of $0.00 on servicing the car, even after the warranty expired. That compares favourably to my last car, a Ford, which had the dual-clutch transmission issue.
(Yes, Anecdotes are not data; also, as a Tesla shareholder I desperately want to see Elon ousted; he’s like a reverse-Schindler…)
Many of the dings against reliability are “recalls” that get patched OTA. I’ve owned 3 over the past 7 years and the only time I’ve gone in for a repair was because the motorized truck bed cover wasn’t closing on its first try. I had to press it twice for a few weeks until I got it fixed.
Yes, it’s an anecdote. But it’s my “lived experience” as they say.
The honest reason is I loved the look from the moment it was unveiled. I’ve had Teslas for years and this one is the same thing I’m used to but bigger and has massive cargo space, which is useful now that I have kids whose toys (strollers, bikes, skis/snowboards, ride on cars, etc) take up more and more space.
It also powered my house during an extended power outage, and drives itself when I need a break. I love the thing. Just wish it wasn’t wrapped up with so much political angst.
Appreciate the reply, thanks. I had heard so many stories about build issues (as with other new Tesla models), and it's pretty expensive too. I wasn't sure what attracted people enough to overcome these downsides (and the polarizing aesthetics, of course). But if you've got skis and ride-on cars, I see how the bed would make this a winner over the Model X.
I’d like to see the actual distribution of issues because the impression that i get is that a few people have a lot of problems and a lot of people have few to no problems.
To me it reads as, "For those people looking to buy an EV, they have a favorable impression of the Toyota brand", i.e., they wish Toyota made a good EV but they'll probably end up with a Prius !
Prius buyers are pretty distinct from EV buyers. Hybrid buyers are looking for efficiency and don’t mind a clunky drive experience to pay for that efficiency. EV buyers are mostly looking for a great driving experience that you definitely wouldn’t get with a Prius, maybe a small sports car but they still want a family sedan or SUV.
Well that and this was a survey of regular consumers, not pedantic programmers who tend to fall into the premature optimization trap. Most consumers don't care about the distinction between an EV and a hybrid. This also wasn't a question about which brand they actually plan to buy from, but it does potentially indicate a willingness to pull back and pick something that is good enough (a hybrid) rather than "perfect" (an EV). It tracks with my own experience too - I have considered Tesla in the past, but a Prius Prime seems like a more sensible choice for what I need.
Yeah, that was an immediate red flag. Something's fucky here. Nobody likes the BZ4X, not even Toyota. I thought maybe they were including plugin hybrids or regenerative hybrids in with EVs (technically true but not the common usage of the word), but the report only mentions the words "plug" and "hybrid" once each, and in that context they are mentioning them separately.
I guess it's possible alot of EV likers already have a Prius or something and really like it - that was me 2 years ago, it was a great car. But I still wouldn't have said I view Toyota favourably ever since it became clear they hate electric cars, and strange to see them ranked higher than Tesla. Something seems weird.
- I want to POSSESS my car, so I do not want services and remote actions out of my control, Tesla is not the only vendor who try making the car a service, but due to it's track records the sole way to convince me is becoming FLOSS
- I do want V2L/V2H with the best integration with my home p.v. possibly DC-2-DC directly, so far no cars offer something alike even if it's perfectly feasible, but Tesla do not offer even basic V2L...
BYD and Geely are demolishing Tesla on units shipped basis anyway everywhere in the world that Tesla isn't protected by policy. It is a shame because Musk would have owned this space if he had executed.
His atrocious personal behavior distracts from what a terrible and unfocused executive he is. Tesla sales are declining, he failed to deliver on Hyperloop, he failed to deliver on Semis, and he will fail to deliver on FSD just like his myriad promises that he did not deliver on https://qz.com/elon-musks-worst-predictions-promises-1851410...
Downvotes? BYD and Geely each shipped more cars in 2024 than Tesla. Together they more than tripled Tesla's units sold on a much higher growth rate. As an American citizen I consider it a tragedy, but a self-made one.
One way studies in science are 'faked' is by p-hacking. It turns out if you wiggle variables around enough, you can often find statistically significant data that isn't really relevant, but sounds like it could viably be. 538 has an excellent (and highly relevant) p-hacking demo based on real world data. [1] You want to "prove" that this party or that being in power has a statistically significant effect on the economy. It almost certainly doesn't, but if you tweak your sample enough you can "prove" that it does, in a way that sounds completely justifiable.
So this study limited itself exclusively to people intending to buy an EV and within the next year. The fun thing about p-hacking is that it sounds reasonable. For instance on that page limit the data to Democrat presidents, employment, exclude recessions, and you can prove that having a Democrat president is good for the economy. And that data selection even sounds reasonable. But it's not.
Musk not being fond of the political establishment is not exactly breaking news. Yet Tesla continues to dominate EV sales worldwide and domestically to the point that sales figures are broken down into "Tesla" and then "everybody else." And as others have mentioned Toyota dominating in this sample is quite indicative of the fact that they ended up surveying something besides EV favorability.
Tesla continues to dominate EV sales worldwide and domestically to the point that sales figures are broken down into "Tesla" and then "everybody else."
That is false. BYD and Tesla both sold 1.7M last year if you are talking only EVs (BEV in BYD breakouts) which doesn't count BYD's 2.5M plugin hybrids. Teslas growth rate was flat and BYD's was a bit less than 50%.
Let me know if I've made any mistakes there, though.
Wow yeah BYD went to the Moon in the final quarters, which I hadn't checked! Somehow I suspect this article wasn't talking about China though, which is clearly where Tesla really needs to step it up!
Tesla's also a relatively small part of the market in the EU (varies, but generally on the order of 15-20% of the BEV market). The US is really the only large market where they're very dominant, and (and this should be concerning for them), it is the least _mature_ of the three big markets; many EVs were not launched in the US at all, and most of those which were were designed more for European or Asian tastes than for American (the Nissan Leaf, say, was available in the US, but is not the sort of car which sells well in the US). As that changes, and more EVs with good product market fit show up in the US, you'd expect the US market to evolve more towards the European one (that is, a bunch of manufacturers with 5-25% market shares). That's what normal mature markets for virtually everything, and certainly for cars, look like.
Rivian R2 is going to change the game. It's a direct competitor to the best selling Tesla (Y). I have an R1S (as well as a Y) but R1S is such an amazing SUV to drive. Especially in the bad weather.
How can Toyota even be on this list when they only sell one, terrible, hilariously overpriced electric car, and have stated numerous times they don't want anything to do with EVs?
It's very disappointing. I loved my Prius and would have loved a good Toyota EV. I've even driven their hydrogen car and it's not bad. But they insist on doing a Blockbuster\Nokia\Blackberry\Kodak and we can't stop them.
I'd assume it's people who haven't done any research yet -- they said they want an EV, and then they got asked "do you like the idea of buying an EV from Brand X?". It's a pure gut feeling about the brand.
This shows how (un)informed the respondents were. The surveys seem to be specifically about EVs, not hybrids, given the reference to charging networks.
Of course. Does the article mention them? My point stands, considering that Toyota doesn't sell many of those either. I recall during COVID RAV 4 Primes were going for like $100k because they were in such short supply.
I have found that most people who know about Toyota's vehicles are not aware of their PHEVs, so doubt that most people in this survey were thinking of them.
Certainly depends what you believe defines "best".
Hybrids have all the complexity of a ICE with most of the complexity of an EV. Particularly PHEVs.
Hybrids, assuming they are reliable, exist to save on gas mileage and for that reason have value. PHEVs are overpriced hybrids IMO.
As someone who drives an, admittedly top of the line, EV daily. I feel like PHEVs don't fit anywhere in the market. Hybrids will exist as long as consumer sentiment is EVs have range problems. Those consumers, I believe, are uninformed of the actual range of EVs and uninformed about how EV charging works (or should work).
MAGA thinks EVs after going to blows up in their garage and kill them. That's why Elon did the hail Mary. He guessed EV was going to tank, he did the public heal turn, Tesla will bomb but then he'll get some crazy govt deal for every company.
Here wants to be Boeing/Lockhead/GD, a nationally protected company with fat fat government contracts. Trump might throw him a bone. That's his reward for supporting 2025. The new deep state will happily create a new Howard Hughes.
The problem with that logic is that its clear now that Tesla is run by someone who is has directly said that we can wait 50-100 years to set up a sustainable energy economy, and is currently working against federal scientific bodies.
Combined with the fact that there are many EV's on the market of similar quality, it is clear you do not need to purchase from Tesla.
So you can avoid enriching someone who is in direct opposition to climate action while also making your own move to EVs. You can have your cake and eat it too.
I also take issue with "petty grievance". I do not know and will never meet Musk, there is no personal feud here.
I simply do not believe he is doing good things for the world, and the quality of the product offered does not force my hand in any way, so I will simply choose to take my money elsewhere. No petty grievance involved.
Why does this one man, then, work for a government bent on ignoring science and denying climate change? I'm just laughing at the idea that the grievances are "petty" when the guy is leading a fascist coup right now.
What does it matter what one man thinks? What does it matter what coup happens if the world ends because of global warming? The only way to think that party politics matters more than doing every single thing we can to fight global warming, with no distractions, is to not truly believe in global warming.
Because if you actually believed it, you'd be too terrified to be distracted by party politics.
That’s a little like worrying about the roof replacement your house will desperately need in a decade, meanwhile there’s a guy trying to burn your house down right now. Let’s put the fire out, then we can worry about the roof.
Wrong. What we do TODAY determines what happens in a decade. Global warming is determined by what we do today, even if the final destruction doesn't show up until later.
You think that individual choice is the one and only way to fix climate change? The new regime's policy is "drill baby drill". That's a lot more impactful than people electing not to buy a particular brand of electric cars.
> Because if you actually believed it, you'd be too terrified to be distracted by party politics.
Weirdest instance of "whataboutism" I've ever seen. Yes pay no attention to eg forthcoming deaths due to withdrawal of pepfar, anti-malarals, etc but do pay attention to the effect of EVs on climate change (don't worry that it's the same guy selling the EVs that's causing the deaths).
Like Jesus Christ you really expect people to be convinced by this reasoning?
Right. I think the environmental argument for EVs rings pretty hollow until we've exhausted the world's extremely large supply of used cars (and built commuter rail just about everywhere even marginally economical; the US circa 1920 would be a good reference point).
It’s not that simple: the economics of used cars are tied to export patterns and to cultural norms. In other words: used cars aren’t (relatively) expensive because they’re actually scarce goods; they’re relatively expensive because Americans generally like buying new cars and therefore don’t support a larger used car market.
Besides, it’s a relative comparison: a used older car is still going to be cheaper. We’re talking about Teslas, which are luxury sport vehicles.
My observation is about the dynamics of the used car market (reliable cars that are out of warranty still command relatively high prices), it's not a comparison to the cost of new, high end electric vehicles.
My point was that the firm prices in the used market actually reflect demand for those cars and they aren't just tragically going to waste, a counter to your disgust at our supposed refusal to use them up. If they are getting exported and used up, that still prevents them from being available cheaply here.
There are some people who can make that choice, and that's preferable. But not everyone can do that. And to leave a single EV unused, just because we hate a single man, is unconscionable for anyone who believes the world actually hangs in the balance.
As others have pointed out, you could buy a different EV. The market appears to have many options.
But also, I simply don't buy the environmental argument here. I'm pretty sure buying a used Toyota Camry and driving it into the ground is better, on net, for the planet than buying a brand new EV.
Yes, for equivalent cars purchased new. The point was that a 10 year old used sedan than you drive for another 10 years will still produce fewer tailpipe emissions than a new EV's manufacture.
mr musk has been instrumental in preventing this option from developing unfortuantely. his "hyperloop" and "boring company" are ploys to distract people and delay the development of high speed rail
You mean the China where nobody has a voice and the government is allowed to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like to whomever they feel like? The same China where property rights don't exist so there's no need for eminent domain. The same China that, oh nevermind
I know LGBT identity is criminalized there. As much as Trump would love to do that in the US, it hasn't happened yet.
Also, we're allowed to make fun of the president of the United States, whereas Xi throws a little pissy tantrum if anyone compares him to Winnie the Pooh.
Finally, uh... do you really think no one here knows about the Great Firewall? Yes, I know you can get around it with a VPN, but you shouldn't have to.
It's not about distaste. The motivation for buying an electric car is in part about believing your individual choices contribute to larger outcomes. The same logic links your Tesla purchase to Elon's growing wealth and power, which if you are concerned about global warming and fossil fuels, you likely are also concerned about the long term consequences of his current use of his wealth and power, so your motivation to buy an electric car, comes from a similar place to the motivation not to buy it from Elon. Perhaps because this is not reddit I don't need to preempt the trolls, but the relationship between those two motivations remains true even if you were motivated only by virtue signalling
I own an EV and it is not a Tesla. I would never buy or rent a Tesla again based only on Musk's prominence in the company and use of the Nazi salute and support of Nazi affiliated nationalist political parties in Europe.
Musk's support for a president that has halted renewable grants, halted permitting for renewable projects on private land and plans to roll back emissions standards, increase coal mining and use, and generally everything in https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unle... makes a Tesla a complete non-starter for anyone that cares about climate change now.
If we were facing an existential warming crisis I would agree. But since we’re facing a warming crisis that is severe but not existential, I’m not sure. It seems plausible that the damage done by Elon in supporting trump outweighs the benefits we get from his contribution to a cleaner transportation story.
There is still a benefit to having pollution not come out of the tailpipe. When I go for a bike ride or a run and half the cars are EVs, I'm glad (even though I understand the electricity may come from fuel burning elsewhere).
My understanding is that power plants have scrubbers that reduce their environmental impact more than tailpipes. Also, power plants tend to be located in places that are not as heavily populated as neighborhood streets.
If you'd said less beneficial I could agree. Since batteries can soak surplus power and make it available at other times there is a substantial social utility to ev as energy soaks irrespective of the source.
The "less efficient because coal" thing is massively overstated sometimes, it's tendentious.
Not less efficient, useless.
Imagine instead of directly powering the car by combustion engine, you first use a combustion engine to generate electricity to fill the battery.
Coal generation favours long run times and is inefficient at being ramped up and down quickly. Using battery systems to soak surplus power time shifts a commodity which otherwise has to be negatively priced. The ideal input for a battery is of course renewable energy but there is a case for batteries as energy soak during times of low consumption, and to help stabilise demand in the network. This isn't an individual car efficiency statement, it's about socialised costs.
Electricity generated by natural gas or oil and used to power a vehicle is still cleaner than burning gasoline in a vehicle because the generation plant has better emission controls than a gas vehicle.
This is entirely incorrect. I sure hope you are just misinformed instead of purposely touting misinformation. This is the common talking-point of OIL aligned lobbyists and misinformation campaigns.
A grid scale generator is wildly more efficient than the small generator that exists in every single vehicle.
Oil -> Gas -> ICE Combustion -> Wheel Movement
Is far less efficient than:
Oil/Coal/etc. -> Electricity -> Wheel Movement
Not to mention capturing emissions is far easier when you have a few sources of static emissions then 100s of thousands of moving source of emissions.
The grievances aren't petty. He is one man among several who are overtly and actively working to destroy the US. Buying anything related to Musk is helping to finance that destruction.
yea, but they will probably buy from another company. if i had to ditch my gas car, my first impulse is i would see if i could swing something from BYD, but i hear the tariffs are high
> buying electric cars, even from Tesla, is more important than any distaste we have
The man empowers Trump, who is anti climate change action. As is the AfD, Nigel Farage, and all the other wingnuts he supports.
So it's not that simple.
That is of course ignoring any other negative effects from Musk's actions. Sure, the climate crisis is real and should be among the top priorities, but that doesn't mean we can just waltz over anything else.
I downvoted because it’s just plain trolling, even if eloquently written. If someone doesn’t like Musk, they can spend their EV budget on something else, like upgrading their furnace, without being the humongous hypocrites the parent commenter is smugly suggesting they are.
Then it first slowly (never criticizing China or Russia), then quickly (making fun of Ukraine, going full MAGA) and eventually full steam (promoting Germany's anti-democratic far right AfD, the salute) it dawned on me that Elon doesn't give a damn about democracy (he is in fact throwing all his weight behind undermining it across the West).
I care a lot about it, even if it may mean slower progress in some aspects (say compared to China); a system for non-violent regime change is a precious, happy accident of history that's worthwhile defending.
Not buying a Tesla is the least I can do.