… compared to the same quarter last year.
Musk promised investors he would refocus on Tesla. I have a feeling it will do no good to lock the barn door now, because the horses have escaped. After all, Elon’s neglect of Tesla is not the major source of the company’s problems. He has two bigger problems:
1. Marketing. He has alienated his primary target audience (liberals who see electric cars as climate-friendly). That won’t change, and will probably get worse, since he resolved to keep his hand in DOGE. My daughter recently rented an EV and loved it. She also loves the idea of electric cars, and is thinking of buying “anything but a Tesla.”
2. Costs and efficiency. He has to face the fact that our current relations with China will disrupt his supply chain.
Elon is supposed to be smart. It’s surprising that he didn’t foresee the impact from pissing off liberals, the only people who are truly passionate about electric cars. This lack of awareness may have something to do with his autism. A study by Caltech researchers of highly intelligent autistic people concluded that some of them may not be “normally” sensitive to social reputation – the ability to understand the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others.
But that’s just me babbling. I don’t really know jack straws.
Musk’s strategic plan is to shift the company’s focus away from selling consumer vehicles, thus compensating for any decline in retail sales. He maintained that gains in the company’s long-term profitability will hinge on robotaxis and autonomous robots — not on selling cars.
Here in Texas we prove two sides of the insanity coin that these fuckwits display.
The regime in charge of the state gives Elon whatever he wants, both because he’s rich and because he’s a MAGA loyalist. What he wants are places to build Teslas.
The same regime muscled through a one time $400 surcharge to register any electric car in the state, and $200 extra to renew annually, seemingly just to force people to keep burning oil since we’re the oil state.
So buy electric cars, but don’t buy electric cars! The same cats that have been cutting cables at Tesla recharge stations are now being told to buy Tesla…but also that electric cars are bad.
This is the kind of doublethink that only exists under totalitarian regimes.
There is perhaps a legitimate rationale to the argument that taxes paid on gasoline go towards road maintenance (although I don’t know if that’s actually true), and therefore EVs should paid their fair share.
However, as you said, if the fuckwits like Abbott and Patrick have a hand in it, you can be sure it’s only for evil reasons.
EDIT: I see somebody else already mentioned this.
You completely misrepresent the $200 annual fee; it was/is for road construction & maintenance that’s normally funded by the taxes collected on gas sold. Electric cars use the same roads & bridges so it’s only fair they pay their fair share. In truth, they should pay a higher fee as they weigh more on average than a normal car with a combustion engine and as such create more wear and tear on the roads.
Sounds like a surcharge to me.
Not sure where you’re coming from as every gallon of gas sold at the pump includes a tax used to fund what I stated above. Previously electric vehicles were able to use the roads for free (minus the yearly registration fee) but now they’re taxed on an estimation of miles driven. This just makes it equal across all types of vehicles.
You said he was misrepresenting something. I’m just pointing out that he was not, that’s all.
So, in other words, it’s a surcharge like he said.
While you are correct, I think Mr. Dark’s point is that EV adoption remains relatively low (for a number of reasons including lack of infrastructure, range anxiety, higher initial cost, fewer service centers, unfamiliar tech etc). If you want to encourage adoption, government should be doing as much as possible to make EVs look attractive. If you are an Econ major and can calculate the lifetime ownership cost and cost/mile factoring in lower maintenance cost while accounting for higher EV accident repair costs/insurance rates even with the additional fee, you’ll probably buy an EV. If you are the average person, a higher upfront price and a government mandated annual ownership fee are big barriers to adoption. If the government was truly coordinated, it would create a glide path to EV fee implementation to offset anticipated loss of revenue from gas taxes when EVs start to reach cost parity with ICE vehicles (internal combustion engine, not Trumps favorite acronym) and when they make up a significant proportion of cars on the road. People hate taxes, but at least they understand the connection between utilization and what they pay. Recurring fees after you’ve purchased something feel punitive even if they make sense. I have to “pay the government” more annually for the privilege of owning an EV is a hard sell.
I’ve owned a Tesla Model 3 for five years. It has been an excellent car for us. The supposed downsides of owning an EV that loom large in non-EV owners imaginations are highly exaggerated, and the advantages are significant. I would not go back to owning an internal combustion engine automobile. That said, I am hoping to get rid of the Tesla soon and to buy another brand of EV. I really don’t want to be associated with Elon Musk. I would not normally base my purchasing decisions on the politics of a CEO, but this is an exception. The issue goes beyond his personal political beliefs – he, in my view, has become an active force of evil. I also think that he may have lost his mind, and I have lost confidence in his ability to rationally direct the company.
We’ve owned an EV for several years now, and at one point we were considering a Tesla Model 3. As good as the car is, I’m glad we didn’t go in that direction because I also don’t want to be associated with Musk. Which is sad because Tesla and SpaceX are at the forefront of technology, and now we’re cheering when a SpaceX rocket fails and in the long run it will hurt the U.S. because we’re petty enough to not embrace a new technology because of who invented it (or the owner of the company that invented it). All because Musk went from Tony Stark to Dr. Doom in a very short time.
I had a Model S for nine years. It was in a relatively minor accident last year which the insurance company totaled under specious reasoning. That actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it freed me from Tesla at just the right time. I now have a Mustang Mach-E, which I really like as a car, although it lags behind the Tesla in the tech aspects.
also, the master innovator has not added anything to the fleet (other than the clunky Cyber Truck ) since 2017; most of his audience used to be those who want the newest coolest thing
I think Scoop’s point is the key one – the ‘messaging’ here is all to hell. It wasn’t that long ago that Trump was spending a considerable amount of time deriding electric cars as ‘woke’ and for ‘liberals’. Then, when Elon got on board, all of a sudden he throws a complete 180 and starts hocking the damn things off on the White House lawn.
Meanwhile, the bulk of Tesla owners are suddenly confronted with Elon throwing Nazi salutes behind the presidential seal and kissing the ass of a guy who promotes ‘clean coal’ – I mean, Elon is either dumb as rock or the world’s most self-destructive troll.
My fear is that Musk will throw everything at the 2028 election to ensure the Republicans win – if for no other reason than just to prevent the history books being written about what a complete idiot he is.
He’s a billionaire with milions of fawning fans, drug problems, and a 14 year old mentality.Got high on his own supply.
Wow, it turns out domestic terrorism gets results!
I’m sure this won’t have any negative consequences…
It already has, didn’t you read the article? Dumb SOB aimlessly trashes assorted government offices (while, admittedly, making noises about fraud and inefficiency) and now people don’t want to buy his car. This isn’t Soviet Russia, buying it is optional.
Call it a negative consequence if you like, but the system works.
Turns out being the richest person in the history of the world, and then taking time to go out of his way to cut tens of thousands of peoples jobs has consequences too. Consider brand damage of luxury goods due to vandalism a pretty minor response compared to how history has handled these sorts of people, ie, the French Revolution.
By “domestic terrorism”, I assume you mean Jan 6th?
Doubtful Tesla will recover unless Musk resigns as CEO and a new Board is put in,
I’m not sure that would work (he’d retain the largest share of stock, worth about a hundred billion dollars), but it could give the company a chance to move forward based on merit rather than a stained image.
Every time I see a Cybertruck on the road I laugh. It’s such a ridiculous looking clown car. My inner Hot Wheels-loving child still kind of wants one, but the instant that thing was presented to the adult car-buying public the stock should have crashed to zero.
I did find it interesting that the “typical” Republican voter hated Teslas and EV’s for that matter, assumably because they favored gas and oil and big American gas guzzling trucks (most likely it was because Democrats liked Tesla so Republicans automatically hate it). They’d do shit like block EV stalls and vandalize them or otherwise harass Tesla owners. Now it’s the opposite with the Republicans embracing Musk and Tesla and the President himself trying to sell cars from the White House and the “typical” Democratic voters getting rid of their Teslas and vandalizing them and harassing Tesla owners… probably because now the Republicans and Musk like them so the Democrats automatically hate them.
Completely wrong. Previously Republicans hated all EVs and liberals liked them. Now Republican still don’t like EVs and liberals hate only Teslas but still like other EVs. Nice going, Elon!
Well, in my small sample of friends/acquaintances, a lot of the Republicans who haven’t already defected did that exact same flip, where they used to hate Tesla and now they totally want to buy one. But admittedly, that is a small sample in the big scheme of things.
Wow…that’s a nonsense post.
Electric vehicles are more popular than ever. It’s only Tesla that is suffering.
In the USA, EV sales were up 11% over last year in Q1, despite a 9% drop in Tesla sales. Since Tesla is about half the industry, the sales of other brands were up about 30%
Tesla’s market share dropped from 51% in 2024 to 43% in the first quarter of 2025.
World-wide, Tesla is dropping even faster. Sales were down 13% from the same quarter last year.
Even if he left Dodge today he’s still fucked, because his approvals were going down before then just based on his weird and trolling antics on X. Dodge may have made it worse but these things take time to rollout, these numbers got in the works maybe six months ago.
Did autocorrect change DOGE to Dodge, or is that what people are calling it now? I thought you got his car company name wrong at first.
Good point. Dodge should sue Elon for hurting their brand.
Maybe he’s getting out of Dodge….
About electric cars, we switched 3 years ago for EV. My wife and I drive two electric cars in France (both bought as used cars, 3 and years old, 6 000 miles, paid 8 000 for one, 10 000 for the other), charging at home, real life 25 miles per USD, total cost of ownership is about one fourth of our previous cars … Unbeatable. especially as european gas price is at least twice that of the US .
Yes, recent polling and who doesn’t love polls show electric vehicles are more popular than ever and Tesla is less popular than ever! 😮
A certain symmetry, eh.
As a reasonably intelligent autistic person, just let me say that if an autistic person accidentally throws a Nazi salute and isn’t pro Nazi, they would say something like, “Holy shit! I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry.”
I used to be really pro Musk, but the exact turning point was where he called that diver a pedophile. I realized then that he was just a whiny bitch.
I’m pretty sure he “self-diagnosed” himself with autism to try to explain his douchebaggery.
(Not that autistic people can’t also be douchebags)
And “pedo” and “groomer” are the go-to insults thrown around by a surprising number of people who turn out to be pedos and groomers.
I’m vaguely surprised there aren’t more Elon fans jumping to his defense here, as this site really does spread across all sociopolitical lines.
I knew he was a fraud when he did the battery swap buillshit and conned California out of Billions of $$$ in subsidies in ~2013. Read the Ed Niedermeyer book, _Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors_ for sourcing. It’s all in there.
He’s a fraudulent, lying, stock pumping criminal sociopath who should be in prison. But we don’t punish rich people in the country. We idolize them.