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Even Republicans are falling out of love with Tesla
- mikestew 1y agohttps://archive.ph/seYD7 https://archive.ph/seYD7
- dyauspitr 1y agoWhen did the rolling coal crowd ever fall in love with Tesla?
- VOIPThrowaway 1y agoWhen we all realized we needed a commuter car in the family to save a crap ton of money. Rather spend $4 in electricity than $25 in diesel for a 100 mile commute.
- Marsymars 1y agoThat’s a weird comparison, given you can commute 100 miles for like $8 of gas with a $10k car. Breakeven on fuel costs is in the order of decades on that commute.
- dyauspitr 1y agoI have an electric truck and I get ~300 miles on $9 worth of electricity vs $115 for a full tank of gas on the ICE model for around 400 miles.
- johnea 1y agoDitto, my off-peak charging costs about 1/5th the cost per mile of burning gas. And we have some of the most expensive electricity in the US. If you can charge at home, electric is much cheaper. I don't know about "public" charging, since I don't use it.
- dyauspitr 1y agoIn my experience public charging is about as expensive as using gas. But 99% of my usage is with home charging.
- Marsymars 1y agoRight, but I'm saying comparing like-for-like models of big truck vs. EV for commuting is a bad/weird comparison. You can cut your fuel costs by like 2/3 by moving from a big truck to a compact ICE car for commuting. (Or even a smaller/more efficient truck - e.g. a hybrid Ford Maverick costs about $25 in gas for 300 miles.) And sure, you might have a legit reason to need a full-size pickup for commuting, but that doesn't apply to 90% of people who actually commute with full-size pickups.
- dyauspitr 1y agoMy comparison was pretty apples to apples. I have a big EV truck and I’m comparing it to a big ICE truck. They’re both Ford F150s.
- Marsymars 1y agoYes, it was apples-to-apples, and my point is that it's still a bad comparison, because it's like there are a hundred people comparing whether whole Cripps Pink or Fuji apples are more cost-effective for feeding their pets, but 90 of those people have pet grasshoppers that they could feed with leftover lettuce.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 1y agoThe "rolling coal crowd" fell in love with Musk when he bought Twitter in retaliation for them blocking Babylon Bee. The more recent Trump alignment is just icing on the cake (or fly ash for your concrete, if you want to strain the metaphor)
- dyauspitr 1y agoLoving Musk yes, but loving Tesla?
- readthenotes1 1y agoCult of personality thing. Plus, Plaid mode
- mingus88 1y agoAre you saying Musk paid $44B for Twitter out of spite over a D-list comedy website? Of all the articles and podcasts I followed around that acquisition, this is the first time I have ever heard it tied to the Babylon bee. Do you have a source?
- readthenotes1 1y agoMusk loving maga people told me ... And also https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-contacted-the-babylon-bee-before-buying-9-of-twitter https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-contacted-the-babyl...
- dgacmu 1y agoThere are a lot of Republicans who aren't the rolling coal crowd, though. The partisanship is really weird that way. More Americans support environmentally friendly policies than vote Democrat, for example -- unless you tell them it's a democratic party policy, in which case they reject it.
- palmotea 1y ago> unless you tell them it's a democratic party policy, in which case they reject it. The Democrats are that bad, huh.
- locopati 1y ago30 years of propaganda will do that
- palmotea 1y ago> 30 years of propaganda will do that That's a bullshit excuse. Who knows about the future, but for the last 30 years the Democrats have been perfectly free and have had ample opportunity to counter any "propaganda" against them. If their association taints popular policies in the eyes of the Americans, the party is, at a minimum, incompetent.
- dyauspitr 1y agoCountering propaganda here involves stooping to levels of lies, deception, corruption and scorched earth policies that are categorically abhorrent and frankly I don’t think the kind of people that run as democratic representatives are capable of.
- locopati 1y agoIt plays a role though. The right wing has been lying for decades and making up their own version of the world and a lot of people have bought into that such that we now have a dangerous clown as US president (and they still think he's great).
- RickJWagner 1y agoI’m center/right, and a car enthusiast. I’d love to have a Tesla, for the torque and for the simplicity of the drive train. I don’t think I’m a rarity.
- sleepyguy 1y agoNothing is going to turn this train wreck around. Tesla vehicles are dated, uncomfortable, fit and finish are questionable. Cyber truck sales are falling off a cliff, and his competition is killing it. These vehicles, including robots, are just hardware. The Chinese are light years ahead, and the whole thing is just not going to end well for the company at these valuations, and this isn't even addressing the fact that he is the face of MAGA along with Trump. The best thing Musk can do is disappear, maybe go to Mars or something for a while...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- elihu 1y ago> Elon Musk is right to shift his focus back to carmaking No. The damage to Tesla's reputation has already been done, and the only way to fix it is for the board to fire Elon Musk as CEO. > Listings for the Model 3 have increased by 63%; those for the Model Y have rocketed by 80%. The pattern can be seen in both left-leaning states, such as Massachusetts and New York, and right-leaning ones, such as Indiana and South Carolina. Many Democrats live in red states and many Republicans live in red states. It may be true that Republicans are selling their Teslas in increasing numbers, but this isn't a convincing argument. Even in a red state, I would expect EV owners to be mostly Democrats.
- klik99 1y agoHonestly if he announced tomorrow "Hey that was a hell of a bender, and I regret it - I'm leaving politics and focusing on running my companies" and he actually STUCK to that, then I'd be happy. Mostly because I believe people are most dangerous when they think they have nothing to lose (I've heard privately he's talking a lot about being #2 assassination target after Trump) and get pushed into more extreme positions by the culture being so black and white these days. If he was truly out of politics I wouldn't give two cares if he's an asshole or not. But yeah, somehow I doubt he'll get over the sunk cost fallacy and just dip out of politics. He really needs to choose though - if he's going full into politics he should be really get out of Tesla. He's got pretty much full control over the Tesla board though, if I understand correctly.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoHe did two Nazi salutes on national television, compromised national security, destroyed thousands of careers, compromised the security of public sector jobs, used his obscene wealth to try to buy votes twice while controlling and entire party into capitulation by threat of primary, used his roles to break federal law for advertisement purposes, abused his role to award himself contracts, has spent a decade lying to investors and consumers, is on ketamine, keeps getting caught trying to pay to impregnate women, conspired to destroy public infrastructure projects, and actively spreads toxic right-wing rhetoric while amplifying hate speech in social media. That's not even to mention the business itself in how he has failed to ever produce a successful product at Tesla since he purchased it (the Cybertruck is the only project not already started at acquisition). And if he just said "sowwy fow weelsies", you'd be okay with that? Are you kidding me? Is everyone just completely and totally ideologically bankrupt now? Does nobody have a single shred of common sense to avoid huksters?
- palmotea 1y agoI'm surprised anyone ever fell in love with Telsa. Even before Musk's political turn, he always struck me as an untrustworthy liar (aptly demonstrated by the "Full Self Driving" fiasco), which always made me wary of anything he was associated with.
- bdangubic 1y agoTesla built an extensive EV infrastructure and amazing cars when everyone outside of Tesla said EVs are fad. The cars were unmatched and they brought the EVs mainstream. Falling in love in the says past was easy (I owned two Tesla’s). Falling out of love was quick and swift though :))))
- Marsymars 1y agoWait who was saying EVs were a fad? I’m probably fairly described as an EV pessimist, but that’s mostly manifest in a) the long timeline I expect electrification to take and b) the non-EV holdouts that are going to be hard to convert for logistical reasons.
- bdangubic 1y agowho was saying EVs were a fad in 2012 when the supercharger network plans were announced - just about everyone :)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- marcuschong 1y agoYou are both right. Tesla was very special and the way Musk conducted himself was very concerning.