They had momentum and fumbled it with the Cybertruck. They retain a massive sourcing and production expertise advantage, as well as a built-in marketing advantage in their existing customers (and Superchargers).

In the time they fumbled they lost the low-end market to China. They’re currently bleeding the aspirational market to higher-end, more-differentiated brands.

I’m not a car guy. It isn’t clear where they go from here. But they both didn’t use their momentum “to the max,” nor are they out of steam.

First of all, consumers are used to rapid changes (churn?) in automotive design, every few years there is a major reworking of nameplates like the Toyota Corolla, Chevy Silverado, and such. Tesla hasn’t been keeping up.

Sales though is about emotions as much as anything else and the way people feel about Musk makes a difference. My take is Musk was always a bit of a punk who appealed more to some people (tech bros) than other people (women) and that tendency to rub some people the wrong way was always there but he went through a phase where it intensified. It was not so important to ‘please everybody’ when they were selling just a few cars but when you become a big brand like GM or the NFL you can’t win by driving anyone away.

I don’t know what he was thinking but from the viewpoint of making and selling cars the pivot to “conservatism” was not a good idea. For one thing liberals are a lot more interested in buying EVs and recently conservatives have been polarized against them. If “coal rollers” in Texas were going to flock to Tesla because Musk was mocking “woke” people on Twitter and leaving California that would be one thing but it isn’t.

My son’s views are relatively conservative compared to mine but he’s much more negative on Tesla and Musk than I am and his reasons cover everything from an antipathy to connected cars, touchscreens and cars becoming an extension of phones like the Apple Watch to questions of character.

It doesn’t help that like all the ex-China manufacturers, Tesla is ignoring the mainstream market and instead fixating on the profitable but limited luxury market.

Not the only factor, to be sure, but the off-putting icing on an otherwise average cake. If Tesla were the only decent EV in town, I might hold my nose through Musk’s behaviour and buy one. They aren’t, though, so I don’t have to.

The other major factors in my decision are the very public QA issues, safety issues, and questionable design decisions (eg. all-touchscreen controls, dangerous “full self-driving” fallacy) that, combined, leave me thinking “yeah, maybe I’d rather buy from a somewhat more boring company with a longer history of _making safely-working cars_”

I don’t kid myself that the heads of most car companies are necessarily decent human beings who align with me ethically or politically, but all other things being increasingly equal, why would I opt for the one run by a childish unstable egomaniac who stands in loud, public opposition to most of what I believe in?

Reminds me how certain movie directors blame the right wingers for their movie flopping, when the real reason is their movie just sucks mega balls period. Just own your failures and stop looking for right wing straw men everywhere as scapegoats.

Money talks in the free market and consumers vote with their wallets so if you make products that are top quality and great value, they'll buy them regardless of your political orientation.