It's pretty rare to see, on the other hand, someone insert themselves into politics quite so loudly, and in such an extreme way. A lot of what we've seen from the head of that company in the past few years is playing footsie (and sometimes not very subtly) with outright anti-semitism and white supremacy.
I'm not ok with that.
At least from my personal experiences I know of at least a dozen sales that 3 years ago they would have made hands now. People compromise and buy what are clearly worse cars to avoid the Tesla brand. A friend just brought an ioniq a few months ago, same friend who was salivating over our Tesla a few years ago and kept talking about buying one endlessly. Guess why they didn't buy one..
Heck. I'm one of those people. We were customers for life. But my wife who loves our Tesla won't agree to ever buy one again. So we're back to VW. Yay...
I wish they would get rid of Musk. It would be nice if Tesla was just a car company.
The market is there for worse and much cheaper electric cars, just not mainly in US.
Very likely, but I know of at least one person (me) who didn’t buy a Tesla due to what the parent comment brings up.
2. Tesla is one of the more affordable electric cars.
Publicly sure. I assume it’s always been this way though. And I’m more concerned about the ones we’re unaware of.
Then you're misreading history. You have to go back to the age of the robber barons to find private individuals with the power to shut down the government [1].
[1] https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-congress-bipartisan-dea...
More than anything I'd just be embarrassed to drive in a Tesla. I can't believe the level of brand damage he did in such a short period of time.
I don't know if you can have it both ways. Either you're a faceless soulless corporation and you're dealing with PR people and can't get a straight answer, or you're dealing with someone in founder mode but you'll have to hear their political opinions if you choose to use the social media platform they also own.
In other words, I don't think him being eccentric and generally disagreeable is unrelated to him building great products and companies. I wish more founders were eccentric and taking risk rather than trying to squeeze out every last dime of profits by outsourcing or cutting corners or the million other marginal things an MBA program will teach you to do.
Within the domain of the private sector, yes. The paedo comments were distasteful, but that's about it.
That changed when he became a political figure. (And a partisan one at that.) Musk, the brand, has fundamentally changed in a way that more resembles Soros or Murdoch than the bipartisan tech titan he was.
I'd imagine just regular old good customer service would suffice but, you do you.
(Because when supposed "far left" organizations use the word "empowerment", i just facepalm, that's "third way" bullshit imho)
I think Musk doesn't really understand his politics, and that's what hurt him. He should be in the extreme center (with Hillary, or Bush), but he was caught in ID politics for a long time.
To tribal types, there’s nothing worse than an apostate.
The white supremacy stuff is just trash though. That's not "tribes", it's unacceptable.
Soros and Epstein did it quietly. I’d wager that most people have never heard anything from Soros himself or know what he has actually done, but merely have heard that he uses his wealth to influence politics. Usually as an attack against an idea or group. Epstein is certainly not known for influencing politics. And quite frankly, flew under the radar for the general public until the end of his life in 2019.
People outside tech or finance would not know who SBF is unless you told them exactly what he did and then maybe they’d remember a news article about it.
Bezos might be the best example you provide, but I don’t think he rises to the loudness of Musk.
Musk's involvement is on the level of e.g. Rupert Murdoch or the Adelsons. It's well beyond even most billionaires' political activities.
Sorry, a real antisemite wouldn't do that. What likely happened is that his comments were taken out of context and deliberately misinterpreted by the "left" (i.e., corporate and establishment friendly) media.
My preferred is "extreme centre" but that's a bit more niche, and i think pretty much unknown for the anglo world, although Tariq Ali wrote a book on it[0] which is too political for me (i like the politics inside, but the issue is that the only english book that talk about this term is pretty much marked politically when it should be universal[1])
[0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39705210-the-extreme-cen...
[1] But that's not surprising, it kinda confirm my theory about politics and propension to read outside/academic sources
Year Sales Percent Increase from prev. yr
2023 1,808,581 ↑ 32%
2022 1,369,611 ↑ 47%
2021 930,422 ↑ 83%
TSLA is #13 biggest car manufacturer by revenue.
https://electrek.co/2025/01/02/byds-ev-sales-surged-2024-eno...
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
[2] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62694325/ford-ceo-jim-far...
Don't get me wrong, I'm no real fan of them, but they are coming. Significant models have only just been released. In 5 years they'll be a big player here. Too early at the moment.
I think we're finally hitting the saturation point of EVs as the market who adopted them is realizing their flaws as a primary vehicle:
- Inadequate infrastructure (both localized "my apartment doesn't have a charging station" and more globally "I stopped at a supercharger station and it was full of people so my charge went from 100 kW to 15 kW and took 45 min to charge")
- Lack of experience and knowledge around regenerative breaking
- Poor battery performance in cold/extreme heat
- Misunderstood maintenance changes. Instead of oil changes/filters/etc, your tires wear 20~30% faster and you have to replace the battery every 10 years.
The reality is it's not me that's saying this, the used car market is saying this. EVs simply don't hold their value on the used market.
https://www.iseecars.com/cars-that-hold-their-value-study
FYI - I'm a proud owner of a Rivian after selling my Tesla.
I disagree. We've had an EV for ~5 years now, and have put about 10x as many miles on it as we have on our gasoline vehicle. The gasoline vehicle is the second car, and the EV is what we prefer for road trips.
> your tires wear 20~30% faster
Not in my experience, I'm getting 70k from a set of tires, which is comparable to previous cars. Just because a car can accelerate quickly doesn't mean you should.
> and you have to replace the battery every 10 years.
No you don't. Tesla's and BMW i3's from ~2013 are testing at around 85% battery capacity. https://www.wired.com/story/electric-cars-could-last-much-lo...
> The reality is it's not me that's saying this, the used car market is saying this.
Absolutely. You can buy a 3 year old Tesla Model 3 for $20k, cheaper than a comparable gasoline car, and seems like an excellent deal. If it wasn't for the Musk stigma we'd likely be purchasing one to replace our gasoline car.
Anecdotal. Just do a few google searches and the data says 20~30%. Torque, weight, etc. all conclude this. Just go into a discount tire and the guys will tell you this is true.
> Just because a car can accelerate quickly doesn't mean you should.
You've reinforced my point - which is most people don't know how to drive EVs with maintenance in mind.
> NTesla's and BMW i3's from ~2013 are testing at around 85% battery capacity.
So then why not warrant against it if this is so certain? Also, ICE gas tanks don't get smaller over time.
That's like saying you have to replace a dishwasher every year because it only comes with a 1-year warranty.
Those data defy simple explanation. The car with the highest 5-year depreciation is the Maserati Quattroporte (64.5%). After that the BMW 7 Series (61.8%) and Maserati Ghibli (61.3%).
So for starters, you have to control for (a) sports and (b) expensive cars. Niches EVs have targeted. The Model 3 is shown to have a 42.9% 5-year depreciation, around the category average for SUVs.
Fair. But the opposite is also true...Porsche 911 and 718 are both 9% and 17% depreciation values respectively, which bring the overall averages down too. Not to mention the Model S is #19 in worst depreciation. So there are a lot of factors at play other than simply saying "just eliminate all sports/expensive cars"
> The Model 3 is shown to have a 42.9% 5-year depreciation, around the category average for SUVs.
You first made a point about comparing apples to oranges (which was fair) and then compared apples to oranges to make another same point. /headscratch
You would have to compare a Model 3 to a sedan, not an SUV. Point is, if EVs are as valuable as people make them out to be and the demand is so high for them, then why isn't the used car market telling us that?
At old Tesla stations it went from 150kw to 75kw.
Any v3 station (first introduced in 2019!) will stay at 150kw to 250kw. I haven't seen a v2 station in 2 years now.
You also don't need a battery based on its age, you need it based on its mileage. Some people like my wife only drive 8k miles a year, which is more around 20 years...
It goes to whatever the software tells it to, which is based on the following factors:
- What percentage the battery is at when it starts charging
- Environmental conditions (cold/heat)
- How many other cars are being charged (IIRC most super charger stations don't supply the max amps * the number of ports - they assume some cars will be throttled)
A v3 can get up to 250 kW but only under optimal conditions. The more EVs on the road, the less optimal it becomes.
> You also don't need a battery based on its age, you need it based on its mileage. Some people like my wife only drive 8k miles a year, which is more around 20 years
True, but for reference, "Tesla also provides an 8-year warranty (or up to 150,000 miles, depending on the model) for its batteries, guaranteeing at least 70% capacity retention during this period". The average consumer doesn't understand that their car gets less range over time after use.
Yeah, EVs aren't yet at gas car parity but it's close enough for many people. We really don't do much interstate traveling and live in a sunny state.
I do find it interesting that people think of Tesla as being a luxury brand though. I mean, sure, the Model S and Cybertruck are expensive, but you can get a Model 3 for $40k (before $7500 federal credit plus whatever incentives your state has). This is lower than the average new car price of $48k and the same as the top-end RAV4. The Model 3 is cheaper than most other electric cars in its class, and is likely the reason why Musk thinks getting rid of the federal credit will hurt his competitors more than him.
He could be busy further developing battery technology to further enable decarbonization and energy decentralization based on renewables.
Having founded an EV company, you’d think that would be a core value he would hold, however everything he currently signals speak to the opposite.
I cannot fathom why on earth he now seems to be working against himself, and alienating his core customer base, who were most likely to buy EV’s — green, liberal, “woke”, left leaning consumers.
Musk went all in extreme right-wing. Even though most "green" buyers are left leaning.
I started disliking Musk after his pedo comments in regards to the cave rescuers. The smart/geeky/techy guy is a facade.
I mainly would not consider Tesla because of Musk. The poor build quality just reinforces that stance.
The mask is completely off at this point.
Though sometimes I remember how just about everyone in my life that I love, respect and have spent a lot of time with has said something stupid, insecure, distasteful or offensive at some point. Everyone makes mistakes and says or does something out of character when they are at their worst. The difference with Elon is that so much of what he says is so public.
Some of my friends who are extremely anti-Elon biased will say things like " as a CEO of a company he shouldn't be so public about his opinions", and I don't get why they feel that way. I ask inquisitively and I never get a clear logical answer that doesn't resemble something like "because I don't like his opinions".
However, as far as I can tell their opinions of his opinions is based on some article they read, and not from a long-form conversation or statement where all the nuance and context of his opinions is included.
It seems like people's opinion of Elon has everything to do with what information they have, and what information they have has everything to do with where they are getting it. Some people have listened to the podcast interviews Elon has been on and have a more in-depth grasp of his stances on things with all the nuance, and some people only read articles about an outrageous tweet he made. If you only get one or the other of these channels of information, you will have very different perspectives on him.
My next EV will be a Lucid if I choose to start driving again.
https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64...
All the usual EV caveats apply though. Being able to charge at home is a must. Living in a cold weather state is probably not advised. Multi-state road trips are doable but not recommended; it's just too much of a hassle. Keep a gas car for that. And I still don't trust any driving assist more advanced than enhanced cruise control.
I have no emotional response to Musk so that doesn't color my opinion of the car.
That's going to be true for many car sales. People don't usually downgrade on cars, and there is real progress on car features over a typical period between buying cars. It'll be especially true if a brand like Tesla where most if their sales are coming from people who previously owned significantly cheaper cars.
also, i drove in a tesla, and the number of cameras doing weird and confusing things with bad perspectives weirded me out. i don't know why, but it just felt wrong, and too much information on the screen too. like they tried to do every technical thing just because.
and if you don't think musk is a danger, idk what to tell you. either you support him or you just don't care about human life.
But every online comment and guide telling people to simply install a charger in their driveway assumes a certain amount of privilege, and I feel a lot of this discussion just assumes everyone has that privilege. I'm currently living in an apartment, my underground car park has no power runs anywhere near my car. Before that I lived in a rented house, and getting permission to install anything that required drilling a single hole would have been a non starter.
I have zero regrets about picking the EV at the last minute, and would 100% make this choice again. I assumed, like I imagine most people do, that having to wait while charging would be a deal breaker. I quickly learned to love the wait though. It makes long road trips so much more comfortable when you take a break every 6 hours that's long enough to go for a walk or take a nap.
I could employ that strategy with an ICE car, sure, but if I compare my ICE to my EV, the differences between the two in terms of comfort, functionality, and cost of operating put the EV way out ahead of the ICE.
What other cars you had before?
I'll never buy a Tesla. A decade ago I was a huge fan.
Most likely option at the moment is the Hyundai ioniq 5 N ... not only a better drivers car than anything Tesla have ever put out, but I don't have to swallow the Musk emotional tax or have his smell lingering over the purchase ...
I'll ... never ... buy ... a ... Tesla.
The brand is over.
Forget about Elon being and the company culture, there's practical reasons for me not wanting to own one of these even though I could afford one.
Living in cold Canadian province, there would be no upside to owning one of these. Just more hassle. If given one I'd sell it probably for less than the market value just so I can get a more practical hybrid or gas guzzler car.
That's not to say that there aren't other Teslas around here, but for me it just would not be worth the hassle.
Heck even the RAV-4 is a problem because it uses a heat pump instead of resistance heating, which means it can't heat the cabin in full EV mode when the temp is < 20F, so I force it into gas mode to stay warm on those days.
Not sure how you fix this problem, other than just continuing to improve energy density in batteries to where you don't think about it anymore.
It's like a bunch of people who are a fan of the color yellow got mad when you said you're not a fan of yellow.
Each has taken, uh, far more aggressive actions in their respective pasts.
Back even 5 years ago the brand was crazy hot. Everyone loved it. People at work, driving around, students on campus would stop me to ask about it. There was nothing else you could drive that signaled you cared about the environment and wanted to do something about it.
Now, the brand is completely toxic.
People talk about it apologetically. No one is proud or happy to own one. The best anyone says now is that there was nothing else good on the market at the time or they bought it before.
Heck. My wife loves our Tesla. Never wanted to drive anything else. We were going to keep buying them until the end of time. She now refuses to buy another one.
If you told me a few years ago that in a few months I'll be buying a VW instead of a Tesla I would have thought you were crazy.
Really, in my circles it's gone from a positive signal to an embarrassing negative one at best.
https://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-far-right-prodigy-dr...
Musk tried to frame the situation as if the person was sentenced for sharing memes, but the reality involved more serious charges, including weapons-related offenses.
The same applies to the AFD. In 2022, a group called "Patriotische Union" plotted a coup to overthrow the German government, and several AFD figures were involved in the plan. To now seem him fanboying over AFD is nuts.
Driving their cars is what made me hate their cars.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if US politics was far lesser of an impact than the actual car itself.
Myself I think the cars are bland inside for their aim of luxury, the driving assists is terrible for its aimed goal, but the overall car is okay. Except their most recent rust bucket which is clearly a meme car and I don't know why they went ahead with that.
I'm sure most the country at large don't know/care about X.com/Election stuff.
1) he's an anti-trans right winger. If you aren't, you might dislike him.
2) he's boastful and prideful, which some people find irritating.
3) he lies, constantly about the capabilities and timeliness of his companies. If you are excited about EVs or space or tunnel boring you might dislike the hype->reality->hype cycle.
4) guy is... kinda just an asshole online?
5) if you believe billionaires are fundamentally people who got their money exploitatively, you'll dislike musk.
6) you might disagree with his stewardship of key technologies in space or evs. He's made prioritization decisions one might disagree with.
7) he made high speed rail in California more difficult through the hyperloop nonsense
8) he's anti worker and anti union, and many people here are workers or union members and find the way he treats his employees as unethical.
9) he's has a history of having many children out of wedlock, and kinda ignoring those children and women
10) he has positions about birth rates that could be just esoteric or could be great replacement theory racism and it's unclear which is true.
Probably many reasons beyond these. If someone believes one of these, they might leave a pretty tepid comment.
If someone believes multiple of these, odds are good they'll see Musk as a villain.
Lots of questionable design decisions clearly coming from the top, such as capacitive/touch controls for everything (turn signals? horn?!) and, well, the entire Cybertruck.
Mediocre build quality. Dated body designs. Lack of CarPlay.
Comically overvalued stock.
The CEO’s repulsive politics and behavior.
The FSD promises continue to underwhelm. The prices have not gone down. I personally wish Carplay/Android Auto were supported. Cybertrucks are polarizing stylistically.
Lots of reasons to not want a Tesla these days. Fewer and fewer reasons to root for them.
People tolerated Musk's narcissism when he was largely apolitical and his entrepreneurship seemed to benefiting the world at large. Since 2020, Musk's brain seems to have been pretty severely infected by the woke/anti-woke mind-virus, and it's far less clear that his impact on the world is an unmitigated good thing.
If you don't like Musk, you don't like Tesla.
If you like Musk, you believe what he says, and what he's been saying during his ascension to the White House is that EVs are trash. Aren't Teslas EVs?
I think it's rather pointless to avoid companies led by people with politics I dislike, because that is nearly all of them. Hell, I wouldn't have been able to see a movie or watch a TV show for years.
I don't know if you've somehow avoided seeing him in the news buddying up with the Trump administration + the German nationalist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland)
Musk has become a partisan brand. I'd guess HN tends classically liberal (whether left-liberal or libertarian). That and apolitical.