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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Many people don't like what the owners of Chick-fil-A are up to but apparently they do really good chicken at fair price so people keep buying it anyway.

I would guess that Tesla is losing the premium they can put to their prices and that is pushing Tesla value to a transactional value. No more apologists for the build quality or features that are pay now get it next year(every year, next year), if Tesla makes good cars and sell them at good price people will buy and if they don't people won't. If can't do autonomous driving, can no longer sell autonomous driving. No more paying extra to save the planet.

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On the one hand, I don't doubt there's people who boycott Chick-fil-A, but in industries that sell large volumes of relatively inconsequential purchases I would assume the effect of bad PR is less.

If I'm hungry and I'm at the airport I'll grab something that's quick and convenient. My choice might not be the best, but whatever, I'm in a hurry and I'll forget what I ate by my next meal. A car on the other hand is a purchase I'll mull over for months— I'll consider everything, because it'll involve a lot of cash and I'll live with that decision for years.

On the other hand, I think you're right, and I doubt this is all just a consequence of Twitter saga. There's a lot of other forces at play here; there's more competition, Tesla keeps pushing some promised launches back, the whole stock market in general doing poorly, etc.

Weirdly, I think you could also argue the flip side of this:

- restaurant: inconsequential which I pick, won't remember the quality of the meal, likely have a few similar options, very low stakes -- why support the chain that's owned by jerks?

- vs major life purchase, weigh all the pros and cons, mileage and economy and environmental impact and identity all come into play: how much long term, big picture economy would I trade to maximize my self identity?

I think it works your way too -- just seems neat.

Yes, but the thing is Teslas largely selled as status symbol. It was that kind of car, they were cool.

They were never "good money vs value" tradeoff kind of choice.

They were almost the only viable electric car for a lot of use cases for a decade. Only very recently have alternatives with 300mi range that you can actually buy emerged.

But you did not had to insist on electric vehicle. It was definitely priced as luxury car, it was status symbol basically.

You eat the meal once. When you walk down the street the next day, nobody knows that you ate at chick-fil-a the day before. Everytime you are in a Tesla, you are in a Tesla, the entire time you have the Tesla.

Also don't forget that a car is one of the biggest status symbols.

Most people can eat a chicken sandwich without anyone they know ever knowing it. I've eaten many meals completely unobserved by people I know. Also, it's easy enough to dispose of a half-eaten sandwich if you spot someone you know and truly care about such things.[0]

Most people I know are aware of what kind of cars I drive[1].

Even if there's equal stigma attached to both, it's easier to quickly move past spending $5 on chicken than $50k+ on a car that's going to be with you for years.

0. I don't. It's a sandwich.

1. Both EVs, neither made by Tesla.

At some point Teslas product became its stock and Musk it’s tout. What lost its shine is TSLA. This is my first go around but I’m led to believe this is what the tail end of a credit cycle looks like.

What hurts Tesla isn’t a few terminally online folks refusing to buy some expensive electric cars but the perception they will in a very difficult market.

Tesla made cool cars before Elon joined (it was founded by Eberhard and Tarpenning - Elon was an early investor who started calling himself a founder one day and got sued by the actual founders, they settled allowing him to continue) and it’ll continue to make neat electric cars moving forward. But they will lose their first mover margins as more players join and that’s gonna hurt.

It’ll continue to be a player in automotive but it’ll now be priced like it. Until it can demonstrate traction in literally anything other than making cars.

You think it's irrelevant that Elon alienated most of his potential customer base?

I don’t think the customer base was actually meaningfully shrunk by his shenanigans on twitter but I think the perception that it was matters more. I could be wrong.

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