Who could have guessed the people who would be interested in EVs are the type of people who don't want to buy a car that's associated with far-right ideology? And far-right people think EVs are for weak libs and "rugged individuals" drive oversized trucks.
From what I’ve seen in the SF Bay Area, it’s a bunch of rich ass lemmings who buy them because they “heard they were good”, not necessarily because of lack of emissions or anything like that. You know, people who have more dollars than sense.
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I would have bought a Tesla. I thought the model S was a nice looking car, (still do) the company ideology seemed very good. Musk came across as a shy, reluctant spokesperson, and I bought the marketing and altruistic motives they espoused back then.
Fast forward to now. Musk is definitely not who I thought he was. The "pedo guy" moment was when I realised I'd been duped. Teslas are not as well built as I thought they were. I read the story about the model S breaking the car crusher during safety testing with awe. Now everything I read is about Teslas veering into oncoming traffic, having windscreen wipers you have to access through a touch screen menu and shit like that. Trimming away features like LIDAR etc and using only visual cameras. Etc etc.
Tesla is definitely not a company that cares about things beyond money. I was naive to believe otherwise but I guess I wanted to believe there are companies that actually do want to use their position for good.
The way Tesla treats their employees shows in the build quality of the cars they produce. Unhappy workers care less about the product quality than happy ones.
A tow truck driver who was towing my car said to me, "it could be worse, you could have a tesla". He went on to tell me that of all electric cars he sees Teslas are the least reliable (in his experience).
There are now many reasons I would not buy a tesla. Musk himself is definitely on the list. I feel foolish for having fallen for an expertly executed marketing campaign not just around Tesla, but also Musk himself, and I kind of resent him for that too.
I feel the same way about spacex. I was all in on "no planet B". Now watching starship, I see it's just a race to be the first asshole to exploit a new market. Between the methane venting in the high atmosphere and 40k starlink satellites that are "just going to burn up" I think they are operating with absolute disregard to 'planet A'. Having a reusable rocket will be for the benefit of shareholders, not humanity.
Yeah, Tesla could turn it around still if they got a different CEO and maybe invited the UAW to unionise the workers, but right now that's definitely not happening.
The values for Tesla's "consideration" and "trust and like" scores put together by Caliber have fallen eight percent from January — while those of German automakers including Mercedes, BMW and Audi rose during the same period.
In other words, Tesla's sluggish sales aren't just the result of rising interest rates, a surge in competing offerings, and a slowing overall demand for EVs.
"It is hard enough to win sales without getting into politics," Northwestern University marketing professor Tim Calkins told the news agency.
New Tesla registrations in California dropped for the first time since the pandemic in Q4 of last year, indicating potential losses in one of the company's biggest US markets.
With rising competition, a floundering effort to realize its vision of "Full Self-Driving," and a distracted and unpredictable CEO, Tesla is expected to have a terrible year ahead.
"It's hard to drive the car associated with him," climate activist Kat Beyer, who bought a Tesla Model Y, despite of Musk's antics, told Reuters.
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More importantly, if you assess what the vehicle can do today, not what the dude has promised for years and failed to deliver on, you can get a better vehicle from other manufacturers nowadays.
It just doesn’t help that Elon is an insufferable twat.