Tesla's sales target is now to have sold 20 million cars in total by 2035. That's fewer cars in total in what will then be the 32 year history of the company than Toyota sold in the last two years:
Part of this is down to musk being an obnoxious prick, but a larger part is down to teslas not actually being innovative, cheap or high quality enough any more.
They look dated, or weird, have patchy customer service, and are not even that long range anymore.
I think the model s, model 3 or the previous model y look great.
The recent model y looks terrible, like a duck.
And the ergonomics are cheap and dangerous.
Removing turn signal stalks, drive select stalks is dangerous. I like the idea of buttons, but turn signal buttons? buttons on a moving steering wheel? and the rest of the critical controls buried on a touchscreen? inside door handles? ugh.
They are all over Berlin as rentals, which you can rent from your phone, and pay per kilometer. People can test drive them easily, and they are not super nice cars. We much prefer the Audis, Toyotas, and Volkswagens that are also in the pool.
The VW group sells 13 different vehicles built on the MEB platform. The id.4 alone sells comparably to the Tesla Y, but if you consider all 13 the same car they are far and away the best selling car in Europe.
Considering all 13 the same might be a stretch, but if you just take the 6 that are the same size as the id.4 you still end up with the same result.
The VW, obviously. With most parts shared across 13 models and all models static for at least a year and usually longer. Plus VW has a good history of parts availability.
Tesla on the other hand is famous for both making minor changes to their vehicles pretty much continuously and a bad history of parts availability.
1M cars over 13 models mean you’ll have no parts at all. 10M identical cars means there’s massive third party supply. Parts are already cheaper than Toyota’s.
I have hosted the models (mostly regression and random forest) WV use to predict missing part availability at their dealership in 2018-2020 (considering sales in the area, average fabrication/delivery time, likeliness of the part having to be replaced, probably others).
I guarantee you that even if I don't like their car, their dealership will very likely have the part you need around the time you need it. It's not the only car-adjacent company that does something like this (Valeo for sure does it too, i worked with them also), but I'm pretty sure it's the only one who has an internal data scientist team working on it.
TSLA believers have long since forgotten that these four characters are connected to a company that is ostensibly supposed to be selling cars. It might as well be an NFT to them.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Tesla has been way, way overvalued for a very long time. If that starts to change I suspect it'll change very quickly and Musk's status might see a dramatic change.
You could say that about a lot of companies right now to be honest. It’s kind of wild how detached from reality some stocks are. But there’s no denying that Tesla is one of the most egregious examples.
We know why the decline is happening. However, I am more curious to see how long people's memory will last. Also a little surprised that there isn't a whole lot of decline in the US.
Does anyone know if Musk's robotics/AI business is under Tesla? What prevents him from launching the robots under a new company? Is there any protection for Tesla investors against these kind of things?
Well, if you follow his adventures a bit, it's quite obvious that there is absolutely nothing preventing him from that.
2 years ago, while claiming that Tesla is the leader in AI, he launched a private ... AI company (xAI), for which he took Tesla GPU chips, and now he tries to make Tesla ... invest in said company, at a valuation (>B100$) that could only be compared to something like Dogecoin.
All of this, with your and my retirement money, since the stock is in the S&P.
>Tesla did not release new cars, except for Cybertruck, for how long ? 5 years ? 10 years ?
As stated earlier, this is extremely bad strategy advice.
Tesla is battery-limited, not demand-limited (delivery wave concern trolling from OP's headline aside). Adding models would only add complexity without meaningfully increasing revenue.
It helps to know basic fundamental facts about the company before commenting.
>Now there is a lot of competition and their lineup did not change at all.
More misinformation. Tesla continuously updates their cars unlike most manufacturers which are stuck in "waterfall" model year refreshes.
See Sandy Munro's excellent breakdowns on the phenomenal pace of innovation at Tesla compared to competitors.
Not demand limited ? Yeah sure, CEO once said that they have infinite demand (at the right price /s).
If they are not demand limited, can you explain why they slashed prices, are offering countless promotions which evaporated their margins, and are running the factories at 50% capacity ?
Aside from politics, their cars have a reputation for poor quality control. Peeling steering wheels, leaking seals, funky air conditioner smells, etc. Then when there are problems you may be waiting months while it sits in a service center. Or the stupid thing may shut off (due to errors or updates) right when you need it.
I would not want to buy one of them for any of those reasons, regardless.
And they don’t have CarPlay. I was considering one but then I started dating a girl who drives a Model Y. So many little things wrong. Like the vent fan rattles, leather peels, etc. And when you get even a minor ding in the exterior, good luck.
Right now the electric car market sucks in the US. I'd honestly recommend people just go hybrid instead. Toyota has been doing it for 18 years now and hasn't had any reliability issues.
False premise. The company isn't demand limited, despite the (conspicuously implied and never actually stated) conclusion the headline desperately wanted you to reach.
I really wish people had any media literacy left. This brand of lying without lying is extremely common in modern media, and also extremely easy to spot once you know what to look for.
> KBA said Tesla sold 750 cars in Germany in October, down by 53.5% from a year earlier. The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
To be clear, you are suggesting that Tesla had no delivery "wave" between January and October? And that is the sign of a healthy company?
You fell for the "we didn't say it so technically we didn't lie" clickbait headline, I see.
This article is the same recycled misinformation that's been repeated for years. What's actually happening is that Tesla does regional delivery waves, which results in large month-to-month fluctuations. Nothing new here.
Yes Virginia, the media will distort information to sell eyeballs. Color me shocked!
You are absolutely right. I live in Germany. Me and many of my friends considered Tesla as a real alternative, but after his lunacy came to light, none of us will even think of driving one.
Why would you assume that's not the case? Knowing something has gone wrong is different to putting effort into ensuring the general public is aware that you know something has gone wrong.
You're right that most people don't want to buy an ideological badge. They want a quality vehicle. The problem is that Musk turned Tesla into an ideological badge.
Off the top of your head, can you think of a single political remark made by the owners of Audi, Toyota, or Hyundai?
I am a human, so that's entirely possible, but perhaps you'd like to expand on this point, otherwise, I risk remaining confused.
Let me be clear about my point though, Tesla's are _not_ quality vehicles, and given a choice, consumers with money will not select them. Politics do not enter into this equation outside of Hacker News.
The fanboys buy into the politics. They legitimately believe Musk made Twitter a place for free speech just because they can say racial slurs without repercussions. But happily ignore folks censored for saying such awful things as "cis". Musk fans are hypocrites first and foremost. Just like most right wingers. They demonstrate time and time again that they have zero real values or consistency.
I was all in on Tesla in 2019. Solar, powerwalls, model 3.
Traded the car in a couple months ago. It was ok, as a car, but I hated what it had become synonymous with so it was worth the financial hit to give up a paid off car. Turns out the new Mach-e which replaced it is better in every way.
Might be some fanboys left, but a bunch of folks who might have fallen into that category in the past have been driven away by Musk’s unconscionable activities.
He chose politics that we're opposite and upsetting to their primary consumer market. It's "wrong" not in the sense of morality (though I would argue he has some very morally objectionable politics), but "wrong" because he made a poor decision by dumping money into politics in multiple countries, supporting objectionable candidates (to tesla's consumer base) and hurt his businesses, as we see clearly in sales data
What question is there to answer? Do you legitimately not know about the controversies surrounding Elon Musk? Not thinking they’re a big deal is not the same as not knowing about them. If you are on HN you know his reputation and you know the things he’s done that have upset certain populations. There is no way you’re going to convince me this question is meant to be seriously answered.
in Germany in particular? Endorsed a far-right party that is strongly opposed to renewable energy and electric vehicles, which does not strike me as smart if you're trying to appeal to EV buyers in Germany.
We are not even in US, but 2 of my Tesla friends turned to support Trump and upgraded to new Model Y. I'd do the same, but I'm broke. I don't support Trump at all, but at least I don't suffer from TDS.
I feel there has been shift or perhaps we were cringe tech bros from the start.
I don't know who you're addressing. Lots of people, me included, don't like the conspiracy minded politicization of his fortune but still think the cars are pretty great. Seems like a boring opinion that wouldn't be controversial, but we still find ourselves subtweeted anyway.
(Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
Yeah, but "the standard" in this case is basically "everyone's slightly racist drunk uncle". You or I might disagree with that politics but it's absolutely not "uncommon", at all. In fact there's nothing particularly notable about the guy's opinions at all absent the financial force behind them.
So... are we cancelling the guy for his opinions or engaging in praxis trying to eliminate his ideology's funding? Very different moral calculus, IMHO, and neither seems very well justified (or implemented[1]) by the attitude I'm seeing in these debates.
[1] I mean, downvoting your fellow lefty traveller in a tiff over the car he drives might feel good but it's clearly not having the desired effect of changing Musk's politics. I am not your enemy, basically. Why are you fighting with the guy who's already voting for your candidates?
Right, and I repeat: if this you arguing with drunk uncles, that's not me. If this is you doing praxis and trying to organize, you are aiming at the wrong target by trying to engage with your political allies here on HN.
Mostly, I suspect, you're just angry and wanting to blow off steam. Which is fine! But not likely to make either of us feel better.
Where do you see me making excuses for Musk? I'm saying I'm happy to drive, buy and recommend a Tesla even if the company is run by a drunk uncle because the other 100,000 of them seem like they worked hard to make a good product. You really think Telsa is the only company with drunk uncles at the helm?
Again, the collision of your personal politics with what you want to achieve seems really muddled here. What do you achieve by yelling at me on HN, exactly?
Only if you take as a prior that he's somehow more objectionable than the like 20% of the electorate that I'm painting as "drunk uncles". And he's... not. He's just rich. Musk doesn't say or do anything you can't see on Fox every day. He doesn't spout opinions you can't read expressed right here on HN in every politics thread (in fact he's a pretty pure distillation of the HN self-righteous libertarian jerk, honestly).
And you don't like that. And I don't like that either. But I'm not going to judge him any more severely than I do anyone here. And yeah, I think the cars are pretty great, and the people that make them (to first approximation, none of them are Musk!) deserve to have jobs making successful cars.
At the end of the day you need to share society with people you hate. And some of them make products you need or want. This isn't a winnable fight you're engaging in.
There is no apolitical, there never was. To say that you're apolitical is just an implicit endorsement of the status quo, coming from a place of privilege.
The winds have shifted, politics has seeped into everything, consumers are voting with money, most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
> (Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
It seems the answer is a definitive yes, reflect on why this is.
Also, it's far more than 12 months. He's been manic for far longer, if not his entire life. We just saw the unfiltered version for the last 12 months. Now we know
>most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
Hmm...
>No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
The woke left forcing ideological conformity loses them a lot of support from the center-left, which turns out is not a winning electoral strategy. At which point one must wonder if the wokeness is just performative and virtue signaling, rather than an attempt to gain actual political power.
You’re totally right. Rampant government cuts, attacking healthcare subsidies, attacking LGBT Americans, threatening universities, ego-driven tariff policy, and just generally poor economic stewardship, should be the electoral strategy. It sure seems to be working out for republicans.
It's not about forcing conformity, it's about having basic human decency. Right-wingers belittle and dehumanize so many groups and people it's hard to keep track
see also: Paradox of tolerance
> turns out is not a winning electoral strategy
umm, did you look at the election results from yesterday?
#1 economy (i.e. emotionally driven tariffs)
#2 people don't like seeing children and neighbors disappeared by masked thugs (i.e. due-process and rule-of-law)
Not only that, Musk eagerly promoted Tucker Carlson's interview with a Nazi who said the murder of Jews in concentration camps was "humane", and that Winston Churchill was the "chief villain" of WW2.
Elon promised too much (self driving cars coming next month, this time for real), and the market has realized that after the 25th promise, he‘s not going to deliver.
Also, Elon should have stick to cars and rockets. His venturing into politics, and into media (with buying X) didn’t help him either. He got demystified, and demolished his image of a super focused half-einstein, half-edison. Now more of an half-Trump. And that didn’t help his car sales either.
Swasticars don't sell well.
The main problem with Musk's proposed pay deal is that he still gets paid billions even if he continues to fail:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/musks-record-tes...
Tesla's sales target is now to have sold 20 million cars in total by 2035. That's fewer cars in total in what will then be the 32 year history of the company than Toyota sold in the last two years:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/business/elon-musk-tesla-...
Tesla's target used to be 20 million per year:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
But Tesla's board doesn't care. They got theirs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/business/tesla-stock-sale...
https://www.afr.com/technology/life-changing-wealth-stopped-...
Part of this is down to musk being an obnoxious prick, but a larger part is down to teslas not actually being innovative, cheap or high quality enough any more.
They look dated, or weird, have patchy customer service, and are not even that long range anymore.
I think the model s, model 3 or the previous model y look great.
The recent model y looks terrible, like a duck.
And the ergonomics are cheap and dangerous.
Removing turn signal stalks, drive select stalks is dangerous. I like the idea of buttons, but turn signal buttons? buttons on a moving steering wheel? and the rest of the critical controls buried on a touchscreen? inside door handles? ugh.
> I think the model s, model 3 or the previous model y look great.
They look terrible. They looked terrible when they came out 13, 8 and 5 years ago and they have aged very poorly.
They are all over Berlin as rentals, which you can rent from your phone, and pay per kilometer. People can test drive them easily, and they are not super nice cars. We much prefer the Audis, Toyotas, and Volkswagens that are also in the pool.
From US sales, Audi can't give away their electric cars. Is it any different in Berlin or are you referring to gas/diesel Audis?
The VW group sells 13 different vehicles built on the MEB platform. The id.4 alone sells comparably to the Tesla Y, but if you consider all 13 the same car they are far and away the best selling car in Europe.
Considering all 13 the same might be a stretch, but if you just take the 6 that are the same size as the id.4 you still end up with the same result.
In 10-20-30 years, which one do you think you'll be able to maintain - obscure VW ID.4.324.7-cz or Tesla Model Y?
The VW, obviously. With most parts shared across 13 models and all models static for at least a year and usually longer. Plus VW has a good history of parts availability.
Tesla on the other hand is famous for both making minor changes to their vehicles pretty much continuously and a bad history of parts availability.
1M cars over 13 models mean you’ll have no parts at all. 10M identical cars means there’s massive third party supply. Parts are already cheaper than Toyota’s.
I have hosted the models (mostly regression and random forest) WV use to predict missing part availability at their dealership in 2018-2020 (considering sales in the area, average fabrication/delivery time, likeliness of the part having to be replaced, probably others).
I guarantee you that even if I don't like their car, their dealership will very likely have the part you need around the time you need it. It's not the only car-adjacent company that does something like this (Valeo for sure does it too, i worked with them also), but I'm pretty sure it's the only one who has an internal data scientist team working on it.
Fancy way to say they gonna keep stealership model.
Is this a trick question? I know the Tesla software locks as much as possible to prevent third party repairs.
Huh? All cars are software locked.
With Tesla at least you can pay $5 per day to use their tools (and you NEED their tools because they are up to date with cars firmware).
I'm sure once cars are EOL'd Tesla will release final version of diagnostics, like they did with Roadster - https://github.com/teslamotors/roadster
Gas/diesel mostly.
They are still insanely good value for money. Buying car for its looks is not smart.
Yet (salute + support for ADF party) * touchy german history = auto non-grata.
This is not just German related, apparently. It seems Tesla sales in EU are falling since 2023 [0].
And it seems that until now, Tesla sales in Eu are 30% less than last year [1]
There is more competition, finally.
[0]: https://www.benzinga.com/tech/25/01/43092840/tesla-struggles...
[1]: https://electrek.co/2025/11/03/tesla-tsla-keeps-getting-batt...
Interesting, not only is Tesla 50% down YTD, but it seems like BYD almost caught up with them:
15,595 (Tesla) vs. 15,171 (BYD)
> Interesting, not only is Tesla 50% down YTD,
TSLA is not down 50% YTD. Its up this year so far.
Can you show the math that shows it down 50% YTD?
I am talking about the numbers in the article (Tesla sales in Germany), not the stock:
> The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
TSLA believers have long since forgotten that these four characters are connected to a company that is ostensibly supposed to be selling cars. It might as well be an NFT to them.
It's literally written in the article:
> The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
YoY is -50%.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Tesla has been way, way overvalued for a very long time. If that starts to change I suspect it'll change very quickly and Musk's status might see a dramatic change.
If Tesla's valuation had to follow earnings it would not even be in the SNP500
You could say that about a lot of companies right now to be honest. It’s kind of wild how detached from reality some stocks are. But there’s no denying that Tesla is one of the most egregious examples.
We know why the decline is happening. However, I am more curious to see how long people's memory will last. Also a little surprised that there isn't a whole lot of decline in the US.
I don’t understand how the Tesla fanboys don’t realize how badly he’s torched his consumer base with his politics…
It's not only politics, although it certainly didn't help.
Tesla did not release new cars, except for Cybertruck, for how long ? 5 years ? 10 years ?
Their lineup was great initially, and there was 0 competition. Now there is a lot of competition and their lineup did not change at all.
Their car business is dying. That's why they try to be an AI & Robotics company.
Edit: Here is a good link to follow the sales data - for many countries, it's reported daily. https://eu-evs.com/brandCharts/TESLA/ALL_DAILY/QoQ-Chart
Does anyone know if Musk's robotics/AI business is under Tesla? What prevents him from launching the robots under a new company? Is there any protection for Tesla investors against these kind of things?
Well, if you follow his adventures a bit, it's quite obvious that there is absolutely nothing preventing him from that.
2 years ago, while claiming that Tesla is the leader in AI, he launched a private ... AI company (xAI), for which he took Tesla GPU chips, and now he tries to make Tesla ... invest in said company, at a valuation (>B100$) that could only be compared to something like Dogecoin.
All of this, with your and my retirement money, since the stock is in the S&P.
> their lineup did not change at all.
I think they messed up all models (removing stalks/controls), and took successful and decent looking model y and made it look odd.
Tesla is battery-limited, not demand-limited (delivery wave concern trolling from OP's headline aside). Adding models would only add complexity without meaningfully increasing revenue.
It helps to know basic fundamental facts about the company before commenting.
More misinformation. Tesla continuously updates their cars unlike most manufacturers which are stuck in "waterfall" model year refreshes.See Sandy Munro's excellent breakdowns on the phenomenal pace of innovation at Tesla compared to competitors.
Why weren't they "battery limited" when they were making more cars?
Not demand limited ? Yeah sure, CEO once said that they have infinite demand (at the right price /s).
If they are not demand limited, can you explain why they slashed prices, are offering countless promotions which evaporated their margins, and are running the factories at 50% capacity ?
Some data on how badly he torched his consumer base: a Yale study says Tesla lost 1.26 million US sales due to Musk's politics.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/news/2025/10/28/tesla-lo...
Aside from politics, their cars have a reputation for poor quality control. Peeling steering wheels, leaking seals, funky air conditioner smells, etc. Then when there are problems you may be waiting months while it sits in a service center. Or the stupid thing may shut off (due to errors or updates) right when you need it.
I would not want to buy one of them for any of those reasons, regardless.
And they don’t have CarPlay. I was considering one but then I started dating a girl who drives a Model Y. So many little things wrong. Like the vent fan rattles, leather peels, etc. And when you get even a minor ding in the exterior, good luck.
And their nearest competition Hyundai/Kia have disintegrating reduction gear and exploding inverters.
All cars have issues, but stats favour Tesla all while they are cheapest to repair.
Right now the electric car market sucks in the US. I'd honestly recommend people just go hybrid instead. Toyota has been doing it for 18 years now and hasn't had any reliability issues.
But then you’d drive a car made for an 80 year old.
Not releasing any new model in half a decade (let's forget about cybertruck - tesla already did) didn't help either.
Nope, bad strategy advice.
Tesla is battery-limited, not demand-limited. Adding models would only add complexity without meaningfully increasing revenue.
It helps to know basic fundamental facts about the company.
Please explain how a demand limited company is seeing dramatic reductions in its annual sales? They used to be demand-limited. Not today.
False premise. The company isn't demand limited, despite the (conspicuously implied and never actually stated) conclusion the headline desperately wanted you to reach.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827800
I really wish people had any media literacy left. This brand of lying without lying is extremely common in modern media, and also extremely easy to spot once you know what to look for.
Can you (instead of pontificating about media literacy) share evidence that Tesla is currently battery-limited?
Did you even read the article?
> KBA said Tesla sold 750 cars in Germany in October, down by 53.5% from a year earlier. The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
To be clear, you are suggesting that Tesla had no delivery "wave" between January and October? And that is the sign of a healthy company?
His claim is it's battery limited. I understand that as too little batteries are able to be produced to match the demand?
> Tesla is ... not demand-limited
Per the article, this no longer seems to be the case.
You fell for the "we didn't say it so technically we didn't lie" clickbait headline, I see.
This article is the same recycled misinformation that's been repeated for years. What's actually happening is that Tesla does regional delivery waves, which results in large month-to-month fluctuations. Nothing new here.
Yes Virginia, the media will distort information to sell eyeballs. Color me shocked!
From the article:
> The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
YTD-over-YTD, tesla sales are down 30% in EU. That is not explainable by month-to-month variation.
You fell for the "numbers are real" conspiracy.
Delusional take. Look at sales and/or inventory trends over the past year. The demand is clearly crashing, and for many good reasons
You are absolutely right. I live in Germany. Me and many of my friends considered Tesla as a real alternative, but after his lunacy came to light, none of us will even think of driving one.
I'm still seeing quite a few new Teslas in San Diego(arguably a more conservative city by CA standards).
Someone is still giving him money for some reason.
Why would you assume that's not the case? Knowing something has gone wrong is different to putting effort into ensuring the general public is aware that you know something has gone wrong.
They understand that he has, they think it’ll blow over.
It won't
I don't understand why people think only left wing voters would buy a Tesla.
If you think that's true then people aren't buying a quality vehicle they're buying an ideological badge.
If you don't think that's true then people aren't buying them because they're not quality vehicles.
I think you're looking at it from the wrong end.
You're right that most people don't want to buy an ideological badge. They want a quality vehicle. The problem is that Musk turned Tesla into an ideological badge.
Off the top of your head, can you think of a single political remark made by the owners of Audi, Toyota, or Hyundai?
1) Left wing people have been more likely to buy an EV because they're seen as better for the environment.
2) Even if he only drives away the left wing half of the population that still halves his customer base.
You're confused.
I am a human, so that's entirely possible, but perhaps you'd like to expand on this point, otherwise, I risk remaining confused.
Let me be clear about my point though, Tesla's are _not_ quality vehicles, and given a choice, consumers with money will not select them. Politics do not enter into this equation outside of Hacker News.
It might help if Tesla would release some new models that aren't obnoxious gimmicks with missing paint jobs.
The fanboys buy into the politics. They legitimately believe Musk made Twitter a place for free speech just because they can say racial slurs without repercussions. But happily ignore folks censored for saying such awful things as "cis". Musk fans are hypocrites first and foremost. Just like most right wingers. They demonstrate time and time again that they have zero real values or consistency.
I was all in on Tesla in 2019. Solar, powerwalls, model 3.
Traded the car in a couple months ago. It was ok, as a car, but I hated what it had become synonymous with so it was worth the financial hit to give up a paid off car. Turns out the new Mach-e which replaced it is better in every way.
Might be some fanboys left, but a bunch of folks who might have fallen into that category in the past have been driven away by Musk’s unconscionable activities.
It’s cause Tesla isn’t a car company, it’s an AI robotics company’s /s
This but unironically.
[flagged]
He chose politics that we're opposite and upsetting to their primary consumer market. It's "wrong" not in the sense of morality (though I would argue he has some very morally objectionable politics), but "wrong" because he made a poor decision by dumping money into politics in multiple countries, supporting objectionable candidates (to tesla's consumer base) and hurt his businesses, as we see clearly in sales data
He threw a double Sieg Heil at a US inauguration. That's not a rock you're under, it's a boulder.
Anyone asking this question at this point in time is not asking in good faith.
I find it amusing how few people can actually answer this question. The many downvotes are a testimony to this.
Nah, we just know you're doing the https://lol.i.trollyou.com/ thing.
What question is there to answer? Do you legitimately not know about the controversies surrounding Elon Musk? Not thinking they’re a big deal is not the same as not knowing about them. If you are on HN you know his reputation and you know the things he’s done that have upset certain populations. There is no way you’re going to convince me this question is meant to be seriously answered.
I take it you haven't read the news in a few years.
in Germany in particular? Endorsed a far-right party that is strongly opposed to renewable energy and electric vehicles, which does not strike me as smart if you're trying to appeal to EV buyers in Germany.
“That’s bait.”
You know what he has said. You know what he has done. It just doesn’t bother you. I find it hard to believe you don’t know what this is about.
We are not even in US, but 2 of my Tesla friends turned to support Trump and upgraded to new Model Y. I'd do the same, but I'm broke. I don't support Trump at all, but at least I don't suffer from TDS.
I feel there has been shift or perhaps we were cringe tech bros from the start.
> at least I don't suffer from TDS
Trump earns the ire of his political opposition. Framing that ire as delusional is itself delusional.
> Tesla fanboys don’t realize
I don't know who you're addressing. Lots of people, me included, don't like the conspiracy minded politicization of his fortune but still think the cars are pretty great. Seems like a boring opinion that wouldn't be controversial, but we still find ourselves subtweeted anyway.
(Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
> must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
Yeah, but "the standard" in this case is basically "everyone's slightly racist drunk uncle". You or I might disagree with that politics but it's absolutely not "uncommon", at all. In fact there's nothing particularly notable about the guy's opinions at all absent the financial force behind them.
So... are we cancelling the guy for his opinions or engaging in praxis trying to eliminate his ideology's funding? Very different moral calculus, IMHO, and neither seems very well justified (or implemented[1]) by the attitude I'm seeing in these debates.
[1] I mean, downvoting your fellow lefty traveller in a tiff over the car he drives might feel good but it's clearly not having the desired effect of changing Musk's politics. I am not your enemy, basically. Why are you fighting with the guy who's already voting for your candidates?
if your slightly racist drunk uncle was the richest man in the world and one of the most politically influential oligarchs in US history, sure.
Right, and I repeat: if this you arguing with drunk uncles, that's not me. If this is you doing praxis and trying to organize, you are aiming at the wrong target by trying to engage with your political allies here on HN.
Mostly, I suspect, you're just angry and wanting to blow off steam. Which is fine! But not likely to make either of us feel better.
I don't see the point in the mental gymnastics to make excuses for Musk.
He's plainly not as you wish him to be. It's much better to simply see him as he is.
This is how he is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQNNo2a9xc
It's not great.
Where do you see me making excuses for Musk? I'm saying I'm happy to drive, buy and recommend a Tesla even if the company is run by a drunk uncle because the other 100,000 of them seem like they worked hard to make a good product. You really think Telsa is the only company with drunk uncles at the helm?
Again, the collision of your personal politics with what you want to achieve seems really muddled here. What do you achieve by yelling at me on HN, exactly?
Calling him a drunk uncle is making excuses for him.
Only if you take as a prior that he's somehow more objectionable than the like 20% of the electorate that I'm painting as "drunk uncles". And he's... not. He's just rich. Musk doesn't say or do anything you can't see on Fox every day. He doesn't spout opinions you can't read expressed right here on HN in every politics thread (in fact he's a pretty pure distillation of the HN self-righteous libertarian jerk, honestly).
And you don't like that. And I don't like that either. But I'm not going to judge him any more severely than I do anyone here. And yeah, I think the cars are pretty great, and the people that make them (to first approximation, none of them are Musk!) deserve to have jobs making successful cars.
At the end of the day you need to share society with people you hate. And some of them make products you need or want. This isn't a winnable fight you're engaging in.
> must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?
Yes, unfortunately.
Build a thousand bridges...
Idk man he's staked his reputation on eliminating my trans family from America. Get fucked.
There is no apolitical, there never was. To say that you're apolitical is just an implicit endorsement of the status quo, coming from a place of privilege.
I've yet to meet a person who both says they are "apolitical" and are more liberal in their perspectives.
It's like centerists. It's funny how when you push at them they reveal more and more right-leaning opinions.
Libertarians should, ostensibly, probably have a fairly split voting history, but yet it's always much more right-leaning too.
The winds have shifted, politics has seeped into everything, consumers are voting with money, most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
> (Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
It seems the answer is a definitive yes, reflect on why this is.
Also, it's far more than 12 months. He's been manic for far longer, if not his entire life. We just saw the unfiltered version for the last 12 months. Now we know
>most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
Hmm...
>No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
The woke left forcing ideological conformity loses them a lot of support from the center-left, which turns out is not a winning electoral strategy. At which point one must wonder if the wokeness is just performative and virtue signaling, rather than an attempt to gain actual political power.
You’re totally right. Rampant government cuts, attacking healthcare subsidies, attacking LGBT Americans, threatening universities, ego-driven tariff policy, and just generally poor economic stewardship, should be the electoral strategy. It sure seems to be working out for republicans.
> The woke left forcing ideological conformity
It's not about forcing conformity, it's about having basic human decency. Right-wingers belittle and dehumanize so many groups and people it's hard to keep track
see also: Paradox of tolerance
> turns out is not a winning electoral strategy
umm, did you look at the election results from yesterday?
#1 economy (i.e. emotionally driven tariffs)
#2 people don't like seeing children and neighbors disappeared by masked thugs (i.e. due-process and rule-of-law)
Is it really Godwin's Law if the guy literally performed a public Nazi salute?
Not only that, Musk eagerly promoted Tucker Carlson's interview with a Nazi who said the murder of Jews in concentration camps was "humane", and that Winston Churchill was the "chief villain" of WW2.
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Excellent news. Thanks.
Elon promised too much (self driving cars coming next month, this time for real), and the market has realized that after the 25th promise, he‘s not going to deliver.
Also, Elon should have stick to cars and rockets. His venturing into politics, and into media (with buying X) didn’t help him either. He got demystified, and demolished his image of a super focused half-einstein, half-edison. Now more of an half-Trump. And that didn’t help his car sales either.
It wasn't a promise, it was a lie.
It self drives in like 6 or 7 countries now.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826384
When I think of Tesla, I think Elon Musk sweeping up some garbage on the street while simultaneously taking a dump on it ...
I'll never buy a Tesla. Personally, Musk has delivered generational toxicity to their brand. And he now seeks to be rewarded for that.
The Board is dysfunctional.