Three things are no secret: 1) Elon Musk benefits more than any other individual from Tesla’s success, 2) Elon Musk has gotten extremely involved in political matters (emphasis on “extremely”), and 3) many people won’t buy Tesla products because of those first two facts.
New research from JW Surety Bonds finds that 1 out of 4 Americans “avoid Tesla’s technology due to their opinions on Elon Musk.” That’s a full quarter of the US public that won’t consider great electric vehicles, including the best selling vehicle in the world, because of Musk’s highly abnormal involvement in US politics.
Before we get to more of the research, it should also be noted that Musk has been getting more and more involved, including in highly abnormal and extremely right-wing ways, in European politics — in the UK, Italy, Germany, and other major auto markets. Without a doubt, this is starting to impact consumer behavior in Europe as well.
I can’t think of anything else as significant in consumer product sales. Yes, there are some other highly politically engaged business people, but they aren’t so directly involved or tied to significant mass-market products. (I’m not counting the MyPillow guy, for example.) There are founders and CEOs of major corporations who are known political actors, but not so openly and loudly that they draw widely significant scrutiny or tarnish the brand they represent.
25% of 800 U.S. citizens surveyed is not indicative of the entire country. Not only that, the original study release here (as far as I could find) doesn’t state how or where the survey was conducted.
A survey done in California would be wildly different than one done in Mississippi. That article and this post are ethically dishonest, and the study proves absolutely nothing.
The sample size for a population of 200 million (people in the US minus children and people over 70) with a confidence of 95% and error margin of 5% is below 400.
Surveying 800 people actually brings the error margin down to 3.5%, which is extremely good in terms of applied statistics.
The only thing needed is to add ‘surveyed’ after the descriptor. Anything else is dishonest.
Do you think any statement which starts “x% of Americans…” Suggests they surveyed every single American alive?
Maybe they should specify “alive” though, because not telling you they’re not including past Americans who have died is dishonest.
Yes. 25% of U.S. citizens linguistically means 25% of all U.S. citizens. They don’t need to specify alive, because they had to be alive inorder to participate. It is not dishonest in this case because they (the original study) listed the date the survey was conducted and didn’t not try to portray an old study as modern.
You’re being absurdly literal - 25% of US citizens within the context of a study does NOT linguistically suggest it means 25% of total living US people. The fact that no one else in this thread shares your interpretation shows you completely lack the ability to parse basic comprehension of the English language without taking the absolute most literal path, which given the nuances of the English language, is usually the wrong interpretation.
All I take from this is that you’re distraught I don’t agree with you.
Did you just try “U mad bro?”. What are you, 10 years old? That was probably your only takeaway because you have the reading comprehension of a 10 year old.
Hey guys, I found the Tesla fanboy who never took a statistics class.
How does pointing that out make me a fanboy? Interesting you chose to call names and denounce instead of being civil like @[email protected]. Why is that?
Opinions of him are negative here in the UK as well. In April 2022, 40% of Brits had an unfavourable opinion of him. By August 2024, that had risen to 64%.
Open source self driving tech is out there and works in cars from toyota, honda and many other domestic and foreign manufacturers.
Tesla is shit.
Yeah at this point I’d rather get rid of my Tesla, but unfortunately I’m not rich enough to just willy nilly change cars because I don’t like the owner of its manufacturer.
Car manufacturers are a weird bunch. Like take Henry Ford for example, total nazi sympathizer. Or Volkwagen, from none other than Mr. Hitler himself.
I’m sure you could sell it and get something cheap and somewhat reliable in its place if you wanted to
An EV that fits a family of four with at least the quality of a Tesla? Yeah I think this would mean I pay about 10Keuros for the change.
Tbh I’d be looking for anything else, electric or not, but to each their own.
Well good on you for being moderately wealthy :)
I’m not, by “anything else” I meant something cheaper
Yeah ok, but if we think about this all calculating like… if I sell my car and get a new one, what was the net result? I paid a whole lot of taxes and I paid for the profit margin of the car dealership, and did a whole bunch of additional work orchestrating all this. None of these actions made Elon Musk poorer or really affected his visibility or power in any way.
The only thing I get is a warm fuzzy feeling of not driving a car that’s associated with him. Perhaps avoided the tiny risk of vandalism.
I mean sure, my next car will certainly be from some other manufacturer, but I cannot figure any reason to rush it.
Yeah fair enough. I guess if the market was flooded with used ones maybe they’d sell less new ones, but realistically I can’t think of a way it’d do anything other than give you the warm feeling
I legitimately used to want a Tesla car, long long ago.
My (now) wife had a poster of the Roadster in her bedroom when it was a concept car and she was in her teens. Her parents eventually got a Model S but now they talk about how embarassed they feel driving it around. She must’ve had that poster from back when Elon was just that balding kid from Paypal lol
