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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

I doubt the effect of his politics is huge. Most people are totally unplugged from politics, and a lot of his buyers were Republicans anyway. Even the progressive people who hate him may still buy the cars because people don't often act on their beliefs.

I suspect the following have had bigger effects on their sales:

- Tesla being at the bottom of quality rankings (and lots of evidence of major quality issues)

- increasing numbers of fantastic EVs sold by other companies at all price points

- bad PR related to "FSD" and "Autopilot"

- higher interest rates preventing financially irresponsible people from buying cars for status

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I would argue that Musk's Twitter obsession has an outsized effect because i) it is all over the news and even apolitical people get it ii) even a chunk of republicans find it weird (e.g., even Gutfeld on Fox is making unfavorable jokes about Musk) and iii) many Tesla buyers are left-leaning (in Europe, the mainstream is left of the US Democratic establishment), which means for core markets and demographics, a Tesla car can no longer be used as a status symbol.

Of course, the writing was on the wall without Musk buying Twitter: Teslas are now ordinary, mass-produced cars and traditional car manufactures catch up on electric. At the same time, electric cars are still mostly for relatively wealthy people, which means it is appealing to buy an electric car that's not a Tesla in order to stand out more.

I think your second paragraph is imperative. The question was always what Teslas headstart in EVs would mean. Fundamentally it might just turn out the answer is "not very much".

I question the assertion that a typical Tesla customer is “totally unplugged from politics”. Why should I believe that the relatively small percentage of people that can afford a Tesla are also not at least politically influenced in their purchasing decisions?

Yeah - agree on this. In my anecdotal experience, Tesla owners typically are educated professionals who are well established in their career and/or finances. They're also 90% homeowners because of the charging logistics (charger in garage). Unsurprisingly, these people are also typically invested into politics.

Exactly. Your typical luxury EV buyer is not unplugged from politics.

Myself, I cancelled a Model 3 order and went with an EV6. I already had my doubts, and his politics were the straw that broke the camel's back. If the Model 3 had been a slam dunk purchase, I probably would have still bought it.

Respectfully, I disagree.

In America, car culture is strongly correlated with identity. Ford said "They can have any color as long as it's black." His competitors capitalized on this mistake - people wanted colored cars. Since the 1920's colored cars are the norm.

Large trucks are often seen as an ideological alignment to the point that people advertise affiliations (political or otherwise) with bumper stickers, window stickers, tailgate wrappers, bed flags, etc. When I was looking for a Honda Accord my own brother pushed me to get a truck instead because it aligned more with "who I was as a man." Needless to say I rolled my eyes out of my head and bought my Honda Accord.

And, with Tesla. Many EV adopters I know get satisfaction from not needing/burning gas - it's why you get an EV. Very often part of that satisfaction is that they're choosing a more environmentally sustainable option, and there's a correlation with climate politics there.

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In my anecdotal lived experience, and with my limited understanding of automotive history, I really think there's a correlation with what car you drive and what your ideologies are, political or otherwise.

I think that any prudent CEO (or hell any other employee) would publicly shut the hell up right now. Part of Tesla's success is people ideologically hitching themselves to the EV bandwagon (and subsequently Musk). And, I think Musk getting spicy in the public forum is a bad thing for this all around... and apparently so do the shareholders.

Neither of your examples (Ford not selling colorful cars, and your brother wanting you to get a car for macho reasons) seems to have anything to do with people choosing an automotive brand for political identity reasons.

"Truck or not truck" is plausibly a political identity matter, but "truck" is not a brand. Such people will like a truck from any truck company, if that truck is perceived to be big and manly enough.

The comment I was responding to says they don't think Elon's politics will have any bearing on car sales, because "because people don't often act on their beliefs." Paraphrasing.

The line "because people don't often act on their beliefs" is what I found most egregious in regards to the automotive industry because, yeah - I think lots of people do purchase vehicles based on their beliefs (ideals). I shared some learned history and lived experience around that topic to rebut.

Not looking to change anyone's world view with my comment here. I don't think I'm too far out-of-line with I'm saying: many people do buy cars based on their ideals (beliefs).

The closest example I can think of for people avoiding a car brand for political reasons is "Greatest Generation"/Boomers refusing to buy cars from Honda, Toyota and other Japanese companies because of Pearl Harbor, but most of them relented eventually because the value of Japanese cars was undeniably better.

This is not to say that Tesla won't suffer for Musk-induced political reasons. But I don't think this is the primary mechanism behind Tesla's downfall. Rather, I think Musk's political flailing has punctured his reality distortion bubble, so Tesla is returning to the value it rationally should have been at the whole time. It has always been a fringe manufacturer, propped up by unrealistic fantasy about the near future.

>Ford said "They can have any color as long as it's black." His competitors capitalized on this mistake - people wanted colored cars. Since the 1920's colored cars are the norm.

This was founded in a technical decision. Paint technology at the time was not great and could deteriorate in short order if not properly applied. The colored paints had to be painstakingly applied in multiple coats over many days. Which required having enormous lots devoted to nothing but watching paint dry. Black paint was more forgiving and a quick application still looked reasonable, allowing units to be produced more quickly.

Maybe before the Twitter fiasco. But after? I know about a dozen soccer moms with kids in elementary school and they're all tuned into Elon's antics.

I think his political turn is contributing to the collapse of his "reality distortion machine", returning his overinflated companies (with values based on fantasy expectations about the future) back to reality. His politics are the shock many people needed to start thinking critically about the entire situation.

Particularly, the FSD illusion is collapsing. People are starting to realize that "your car will earn passive income as a robotaxi" won't be happening and in no way justifies Tesla being worth more than car manufacturers who make orders of magnitude more cars.

Our Ford Escape is nearing the end of its useful life, and we are looking into an EV to replace it. Tesla Y is not going to be it, because it's small and expensive, not because of politics. I think a lot of people are in a similar boat, and if a cheaper EV of a similar form factor showed up it would see a ton of demand.

The Chevy EV SUVs that are coming out next year seem very compelling in terms of price and range. We just replaced my wife's RAV4 with an EV, and we went with the ID.4. You'd probably be happy with that coming from an Escape, though it's still on the pricey side.

If you look at the specs, of the 3 of them the id.4 is generally the smallest. There are some metrics where it comes middle (more front headroom than the ford but less than the Tesla) but in general if you think the Tesla is small you’ll think the VW is small.

We decided against the Tesla for various reasons, so it was down to the ID.4 and the Mach-e. Unfortunately the Ford is much pricier (probably due to the $7500 credit it qualifies for)

The twitter thing isn’t just politics; his antics have also pretty much comprehensively smashed the idea that he’s a magical visionary genius. Now, not everyone bought into that before, but it was a pretty common view a few months ago. It’s pretty fringe today.

Tesla is a consumer brand.

Musk, as the face of Tesla, chose to align himself against a big chunk of customers and potential customers. At the same time as consumers finally have options for buying an electric car.

Given that Tesla's can take months to get repaired when they have even relatively minor mechanical issues, who in their right mind would be a used one?

>Most people are totally unplugged from politics

I think it would be more true to say most people dislike party politics and try to avoid it. However it can be hard to do so especially in the US.

One of Musks strengths is he used to be deliberately non political and focused on things like the environment without making it a left vs right thing.

It's a shame he seems to be losing that.

I might also add gas prices being low again.

There might be more to it, but it sure seems like not. There’s been a boom in EV demand every time gas has gone up, and it’s fallen off when prices drop. This used to happen with hybrids too, same cadence.

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