Tesla rebranded itself.
Elon Musk didn't expand the Tesla brand. He damaged it.
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| Tesla Model S |
I am not a "car person." I don't love cars. I drive a Toyota Avalon hybrid. It needs washing. But I am aware that cars make implied statements about the owner because they express choices and tradeoffs: Size, performance, occupancy, number of doors, and fuel choices. A convertible says something different than does a mini-van. A Toyota Avalon hybrid is larger than a Camry. It implies an older, prosperous White guy who wants a roomy comfortable sedan. I call it a "Japanese Buick," although most of it was manufactured in Kentucky. I wouldn't drive a Buick because they are too White. Too Episcopalian.  |
| Dodge Ram |
Am I reading too much into car brand statements? Yes. The nuances of brands overstate the case, but some vehicles make very bold statements. For example, big pickup trucks, especially Dodge Rams, are an unmistakable statement of power, along, of course, with the utility of a truck bed. A Dodge Ram implies can-do capability. A Dodge Ram could bring a washing machine home from Best Buy, saving the delivery charge. Plus, a Dodge Ram passenger sits high behind a formidable front end. A man could buy a Dodge Ram thinking he is protecting himself and his family in a manly way--not by getting his family vaccinations for COVID, which is for wimps, but by being the "winner" in any collision with a car or tree. There is a belligerent side of the Dodge Ram image. It has a Gadsden flag quality: Don't tread on me. It fills up the road or a parking space. Possibly, somewhere in America, there is a Dodge Ram with a bumper strip that says Co-exist or Stop the Keystone Pipeline or even Biden, but I have never seen one. Those bumper strips are for people driving a Prius. 
Red state traditionalists aren't going to start buying Teslas. Fox News hosts sneer at people who speak of climate change, greenhouse gases, and electric cars. The populist right celebrates internal combustion engines and jobs in the fossil fuel industry. Teslas are like wind power: Untested, inconvenient, and another example of "woke progressive nonsense." Red state populists who watch Tucker Carlson think Tesla drivers are elitist libs.
Elon Musk muddled the Tesla brand. He tweeted "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci." Prosecute?? He retweeted a post suggesting Nancy Pelosi's husband was involved in a homosexual tryst, not a home invasion. Say, what??
Musk is acting manic and foolish. He muddled the Tesla brand along with his own. It is now a vehicle for upscale people who are OK with downscale opinions. Teslas are expensive, so upscale is baked in. Conspiracy theories voiced by Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson were not upscale. Anti-establishment nose-thumbing has the potential for being cool, but not if it reflects Q-Anon conspiracies. Know-nothing politics isn't cool--not to Tesla buyers.The bloom is off the rose. I will wait until Ford or GM or Volkswagen comes up with something. No use overpaying for a Tesla.
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11 comments:
Tesla has had an EV monopoly for the past 5 years or so. Now, most American manufacturers (like Ford and Chevy) also make EVs. The average Joe isn't going to buy a Tesla when they cost $60K. American EVs cost almost as much. EVs are impractical and costly, they have a short driving range, they take a long time to recharge, they are lousy in cold weather, and the batteries require slave labor to mine the cobalt. EVs are not the answer. Politicians are screwing-up mandating them. Further, we don't have an electrical grid capable of handling a large number of EVs.
Elon Mush has neglected Tesla for the past 6 months while he's romanced Twitter. Once Musk gets a new CEO for Twitter, then he can re-focus on Tesla.
Musk is still cool, and he's an innovator. The dude is smart, too.
Democrats are having a hissy-fit because Musk has allowed freedom of speech on Twitter, to the chagrin of Democrats. Musk is no longer the Democrats' glamor boy.
Elon Musk wasn’t even on my radar until he bought Twitter – not that I cared because I don’t use it. But suddenly his eccentric business dealings were in the news on a regular basis. It’s left me wondering, how the hell does someone so confused get so rich?
Tesla board would profit from it being unlinked to Musk. Until it is fully disengaged with him, the stock will continue to drop. What liberal financially secure person wants their car to be linked with him? Toxic is the right word. Too bad he ruined owning a Tesla. I too wait for a affordable electric car, but it will never be a Tesla.
As a separate note, are electric cars really the future? Is the power grid stable, reliable even in cold weather? Until the range is more like 400 miles I think electric cars will be a small segment of care ownership.
Yep- economics and trying to avoid brand identity is what motivated me to buy a Hyundai Kona EV. It gets almost 300 miles to a charge, costs about 2 cents a mile in fuel costs ( if I pay for charging at home) and it blends in like a million other compact cars. It’s doesn’t project anything but understated quick, quiet, reliable transportation (that can outrun a muscle car in a 0-60 sprint). I’ve noticed very few Millennials and GenZ people I work with care much about cars as a statement of personal identity.
I, as usual, am an oddball outlier. My wife and I drive Volvos because they are hands-down the safest car in a crash that you can buy. Other cars are designed to pass the crash tests; Volvos are designed to be safe and they pass the crash tests as a side effect of that. In 2012, when a new crash test was introduced, Volvo was one of only two brands that passed the new test.
The image of the Volvo is “affluent liberal“. Not me, exactly, but I don’t really care. In the years after 9/11, I drove my Volvo around with a giant US flag decal in a rear window. I suppose it gave some people cognitive dissonance, which amused me.
Now that Volvo is owned by China, I may not buy another one. But crash safety is still my highest priority, so who knows?
Electric cars will not be popular until you can “gas them up“ as quickly as a normal car. That is probably at least a decade away.
I have occasionally been tempted to say that my pronouns are “f***/you”, when they were demanded by a particularly obnoxious woke fanatic. Elon Musk resonates with a lot of us.
There is a very good reason that car companies, and other large corporations, generally try to avoid getting political publicly.
Elon Musk is not really that smart.
A nice gender-neutral pronoun for Musk might be ‘s/he/it.’
There’s nothing strange about an American flag on a ‘liberal’ car. It’s the Confederate flag we don’t like.
If safety is your priority, you don't want a pickup or SUV.
Data show those are usage vehicles, often due to the way they are driven.
So when I see an a-hole driving a Ram I think about , statically, they will have a shorter lifespan.
It seems most Teslas I've seen are driven by jerks.
Musk has made the brand toxic. There are not enough rich jerks to stay afloat.
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