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Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it (www.theverge.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Musk’s behavior may be contributing to Tesla’s declining sales.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Hey, I love having my priors confirmed as much as the next guy but there's plenty of reasons why Tesla Sales have slowed more than expected last month

Elon's conduct might have had something to do with it but, unless sentiment towards him has changed drastically in the last month, since that's when we saw fewer sales than unusual, it doesn't seem likely that consumer sentiment had a lot to do with this

Consumer behavior is complicated and most people who aren't very online (ie. Most people) aren't constantly consuming Elon Musk rage bait and so don't care much

This and all the other articles like it are ignoring those two facts because it Feels True™️ and they know Elon Musk rage bait gets clicks

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm not following this stuff too closely but didn't some other manufacturer just come out with electric sales numbers that are way better?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They're being outsold by at least one of the Chinese companies now. Ford has a lot of those mustang abominations that they're going to have to dump soon since they haven't been able to sell them, so they may overtake them for a quarter when that happens.

Edit: BYD is the Chinese company, who actually have a higher market cap than Tesla now as well (590b vs. 527b).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Absolutely. I think a big factor in the drop of demand last quarter was the end of the full $7,500 tax credit.

Since August last year there has been this doom and gloom coverage of electric car sales in the media. That may be making potential buyers get concerned about purchasing an EV at this moment. Self fulfilling prophecy.

Elon’s behavior is definitely playing a role as well. I think that at the end of the day he is just trying to cater to conservatives to expand the consumer base. But the plan is backfiring by alienating progressives and not converting conservatives into consumers.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There are plenty of external factors but Musk's behavior certainly plays a part. The target audience of EVs (at least in the West) ist still predominately "liberal" (whatever that means) people who will not be very impressed by his amplifying some of the most vile people on earth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

First sentence of the second paragraph conceded that but it's hard to measure in isolation and, I suspect, being given a higher weight of importance in our mind because it confirms our priors