This anti-Tesla sentiment seems to be purely isolated to online communities, specifically reddit. I have been sitting on my hands waiting for used tesla prices to come down and they never have. The people I know who own teslas still vouch for them and make no mention of Elon. I visited a dealership last friday and it was busy.
I would believe sales are down, consumers are looking for more affordable vehicles while Tesla prices have remained high, however I have never seen anything like what this article mentions in real life.
janice1999 · 2h ago
> This anti-Tesla sentiment seems to be purely isolated to online communities
The dramatic decline in Tesla purchases in European countries proves otherwise. Here in Europe, I've heard Tesla discussed negatively in office canteens and doctors' waiting rooms a lot since Musk's 'arm gestures'. One of the doctors at my local surgery had his Tesla covered in red paint recently.
No comments yet
CyberMacGyver · 1h ago
-Tesla offering discounts on a brand new model
-Unsold “foundation series” models after a year
- Chair of board selling majority of their shares
This and dozen other things is telling that it’s not “purely isolated to online communities”.
cbeach · 2h ago
This level of political tribalism and hatred for political opponents is really unhealthy.
Especially when directed at a clean energy / sustainable transportation company that employs a hundred thousand innocent people, open-sources its patents, shares its charging infrastructure, builds cars in America, and makes a demonstrable impact against climate change.
jerlam · 1h ago
> shares its charging infrastructure
Wasn't this required since Tesla took a bunch of money from the US Federal government for charging infrastructure? And non-Tesla cars pay more than Teslas to use the same chargers.
whyage · 2h ago
As a Tesla owner and a Musk hater, I actually couldn't agree more.
JohnFen · 2h ago
With Musk specifically, I don't think it's tribalism as much as people seeing the harm Musk is actively doing and not wanting to help fund that.
cbeach · 2h ago
"Harm" is a very subjective, one-sided view of a government efficiency and anti-corruption project.
Hundreds of millions of American taxpayers are fully behind DOGE.
I'm sure you'll find some supposedly vital science project that lost its funding, but please don't forget the hundreds of millions of people that are forced, by threat of violence, to pay for these things (that's the reality of taxation as a system). Sometimes those people get fed up, and they want government priorities to better match their own.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
> Hundreds of millions of American taxpayers are fully behind DOGE.
Exactly how many people do you think there are in the United States?
How many of those are eligible to vote?
Now, of that group, how many voted for Trump, how many voted for Harris, how many voted for someone else, and how many didn't vote for president at all?
Of those subgroups, the one that comes closest to triple digit millions is "didn't vote at all". And it's still 10M short of the 100M mark.
~244.6M eligible voters in 2024. ~89.3M didn't vote at all. ~77.3M voted for Trump. ~75M voted for Harris.
Your phrasing reminds me of Pam Bondi's recent claim that Trump's policies have saved 258 million American lives. She claimed that they saved 2/3 of Americans from imminent death from fentanyl overdose. The claim is farcical on the face of it. Nowhere near 2/3 of Americans were, or are, at risk of a fentanyl overdose. She could have used the more accurate phrasing of "the amount of fentanyl seized or prevented is sufficient to make N million fatal doses" but that's not what was said. Instead she said "saved 258 million lives", which is a completely ridiculous claim that should be ridiculed for the unrealistic hyperbole that it is.
Your claim isn't quite as bad, but it's a similar mishandling of numbers.
JohnFen · 2h ago
> "Harm" is a very subjective, one-sided view of a government efficiency and anti-corruption project.
I don't think it's an efficiency or anti-corruption project. If it is, it has failed pretty solidly. In the meantime, it's actively and objectively harming real people.
Regardless of whether or not you agree, the opposition to Musk doesn't appear to be overly tribal in nature. It appears to be a reaction to harm (real or perceived).
detaro · 2h ago
> Hundreds of millions of American taxpayers are fully behind DOGE.
Then they'll happily continue to buy Teslas and nobody has to worry about the few weirdos who aren't.
bryanlarsen · 2h ago
> Hundreds of millions of American taxpayers are fully behind DOGE.
tens of millions. Only 77 million voted for Trump, and fewer people are behind DOGE than voted for him.
Left wing say "property is theft". Those on the right say "taxes are theft". They both have a core truth.
No comments yet
photochemsyn · 2h ago
Tesla's bad decisions:
(1) Cybertruck sales projections were ridiculously overestimated. A mid-level exec at Toyota who did something similar would likely have been fired, but since this was apparently the decision of the Great Leader, there were no consequences.
(2) Full self-driving claims were overhyped and the technological decision to remove LIDAR was a big mistake, if we look at Waymo in comparison, and the long record of Tesla's failed claims on this one.
(3) The Great Leader dove into politics and thus alienated a large fraction of the customer base, while also not generating a new customer base. I see some similarities here to the Bud Light marketing debacle, in general.
Conclusion: companies selling products should really focus on creating good designs that meet people's needs above all else, and should implement internal democratic systems that can remove wild-eyed Great Leaders from decision-making positions before they take everything off the rails.
P.S. Why can't we just have a simple 1990s-style Toyata truck with an electric drive train and a robust battery with well-designed and tested firmware that doesn't need OTA updates and smart phone app and telemetry? I don't need an 'infotainment center' if I have a phone or tablet, either.
bryanlarsen · 1h ago
Some argue that the bent-stainless unibody design of the original Cybertruck prototype was a design for efficient low volume production. Then 1M pre-orders flooded in and they were forced to design for high volume production. Which is hard, and takes a lot of time.
Those sales projections were based on pre-orders and deposits taken. Normally that's a fairly robust projection method, and perhaps would have been if the Cybertruck would have arrived on market in a timely fashion at the promised price.
The big mistake with the Cybertruck was that promised $40K price tag. Without that the pre-orders likely would have much more closely matched sales.
tocs3 · 2h ago
P.S. Why can't we just have a simple 1990s-style Toyata truck with an electric drive train and a robust battery with well-designed and tested firmware that doesn't need OTA updates and smart phone app and telemetry? I don't need an 'infotainment center' if I have a phone or tablet, either.
I would like to second this. A very very simple vehicle would be welcome. I have some small hope with the Slate truck[1], but will wait and see. For now my 2006 Toyota Rave4 is fine and might be my last car.
I regret that Tesla doesn't make trucks, so i can replace my fleet with Tesla's;
I'd buy 120 of them tomorrow if they made one.
guywithahat · 2h ago
Well the long range cybertruck is 62k after tax rebate, which is almost palatable and arguably better than the cheapest F150 EV's, although the looks still might cause strife where strife is not needed.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
And you still have to deal with all of the quality control issues that have been plaguing the Cybertruck.
I would believe sales are down, consumers are looking for more affordable vehicles while Tesla prices have remained high, however I have never seen anything like what this article mentions in real life.
The dramatic decline in Tesla purchases in European countries proves otherwise. Here in Europe, I've heard Tesla discussed negatively in office canteens and doctors' waiting rooms a lot since Musk's 'arm gestures'. One of the doctors at my local surgery had his Tesla covered in red paint recently.
No comments yet
This and dozen other things is telling that it’s not “purely isolated to online communities”.
Especially when directed at a clean energy / sustainable transportation company that employs a hundred thousand innocent people, open-sources its patents, shares its charging infrastructure, builds cars in America, and makes a demonstrable impact against climate change.
Wasn't this required since Tesla took a bunch of money from the US Federal government for charging infrastructure? And non-Tesla cars pay more than Teslas to use the same chargers.
Hundreds of millions of American taxpayers are fully behind DOGE.
I'm sure you'll find some supposedly vital science project that lost its funding, but please don't forget the hundreds of millions of people that are forced, by threat of violence, to pay for these things (that's the reality of taxation as a system). Sometimes those people get fed up, and they want government priorities to better match their own.
Exactly how many people do you think there are in the United States?
How many of those are eligible to vote?
Now, of that group, how many voted for Trump, how many voted for Harris, how many voted for someone else, and how many didn't vote for president at all?
Of those subgroups, the one that comes closest to triple digit millions is "didn't vote at all". And it's still 10M short of the 100M mark.
~244.6M eligible voters in 2024. ~89.3M didn't vote at all. ~77.3M voted for Trump. ~75M voted for Harris.
Your phrasing reminds me of Pam Bondi's recent claim that Trump's policies have saved 258 million American lives. She claimed that they saved 2/3 of Americans from imminent death from fentanyl overdose. The claim is farcical on the face of it. Nowhere near 2/3 of Americans were, or are, at risk of a fentanyl overdose. She could have used the more accurate phrasing of "the amount of fentanyl seized or prevented is sufficient to make N million fatal doses" but that's not what was said. Instead she said "saved 258 million lives", which is a completely ridiculous claim that should be ridiculed for the unrealistic hyperbole that it is.
Your claim isn't quite as bad, but it's a similar mishandling of numbers.
I don't think it's an efficiency or anti-corruption project. If it is, it has failed pretty solidly. In the meantime, it's actively and objectively harming real people.
Regardless of whether or not you agree, the opposition to Musk doesn't appear to be overly tribal in nature. It appears to be a reaction to harm (real or perceived).
Then they'll happily continue to buy Teslas and nobody has to worry about the few weirdos who aren't.
tens of millions. Only 77 million voted for Trump, and fewer people are behind DOGE than voted for him.
Left wing say "property is theft". Those on the right say "taxes are theft". They both have a core truth.
No comments yet
(1) Cybertruck sales projections were ridiculously overestimated. A mid-level exec at Toyota who did something similar would likely have been fired, but since this was apparently the decision of the Great Leader, there were no consequences.
(2) Full self-driving claims were overhyped and the technological decision to remove LIDAR was a big mistake, if we look at Waymo in comparison, and the long record of Tesla's failed claims on this one.
(3) The Great Leader dove into politics and thus alienated a large fraction of the customer base, while also not generating a new customer base. I see some similarities here to the Bud Light marketing debacle, in general.
Conclusion: companies selling products should really focus on creating good designs that meet people's needs above all else, and should implement internal democratic systems that can remove wild-eyed Great Leaders from decision-making positions before they take everything off the rails.
P.S. Why can't we just have a simple 1990s-style Toyata truck with an electric drive train and a robust battery with well-designed and tested firmware that doesn't need OTA updates and smart phone app and telemetry? I don't need an 'infotainment center' if I have a phone or tablet, either.
Those sales projections were based on pre-orders and deposits taken. Normally that's a fairly robust projection method, and perhaps would have been if the Cybertruck would have arrived on market in a timely fashion at the promised price.
The big mistake with the Cybertruck was that promised $40K price tag. Without that the pre-orders likely would have much more closely matched sales.
I would like to second this. A very very simple vehicle would be welcome. I have some small hope with the Slate truck[1], but will wait and see. For now my 2006 Toyota Rave4 is fine and might be my last car.
[1]: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/slate/truck