Data Shows Elon Musk’s Tweets Might Be So Annoying They’re Pushing Away Potential Tesla Buyers

The great thing about this country is you can have your own views — whatever they are — and tell anyone you want about those views. You can even have a blog where people can read those opinions, even if they disagree (not everyone, it seems, agrees with me that Škoda is VW’s best brand but I will not be silenced). Where it gets muddled is when it comes to the consequences of those opinions and who, or what, is allowed to experience them.

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has views. A lot of them. Maybe you agree with all of them, maybe you find them odious, or maybe you don’t care. As Tesla sales slow it’s easy to point fingers at infrastructure, or interest rates, or growing competition. A group of analysts, backed by consumer sentiment data, are pointing the finger at an increasingly unpopular Elon Musk.

Do you know who the head of China’s biggest automaker is? It’s SAIC Motor Corp’s Wang Xiaoqiu. Do you know Wang Xiaoqiu’s politics? Probably not, although you might think an executive in a Chinese state-owned company is really only allowed to have one type of politics so it’s not a difficult guess. The company is having a rough go of it lately amidst a brutal Chinese EV price war and economic uncertainty. The solution? Try to force out a bunch of employees.

Ford wants to make EVs profitable, but first it needs to get rid of some old models. If you want more proof that EVs have a pricing issue, Ford’s sudden price drop for the Mach-E seems to have moved the needle on the company’s EV sales.

And, finally, the EPA has followed its softening of light vehicle emissions regulations with regulations for big trucks that still seem like a big swing.

‘Consideration’ Of Tesla Drops To 31% As It’s ‘Very Likely’ Musk Is Contributing To Tesla Reputation Hit

Free speech is often misunderstood. As an enumerated right in the U.S. Constitution, i.e. one that’s specifically called out, the government is specifically restricted from abridging it in most cases. The key word there is “government.”

Some people, especially powerful people, tend to be surprised when, in a free country, they suffer consequences for what they say. But that’s how freedom of speech is supposed to work.

If I call yo mama fat, it is my legal right to do so. If you respond by punching me in the face I could maybe appeal to the authorities for help, but you could also argue I had it coming.

This tweet pretty much sums it up:

Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

— The Golden Sir (@screaminbutcalm) March 12, 2019

Tesla CEO Elon Musk managed to grow to almost hero status for a large portion of the population, inspiring Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark, dating actresses, building rockets, and saving the world.

And then Musk bought Twitter, called it X, and subjected everyone to his increasingly angry-divorced-dad skeptic energy. Even worse, the self-created echo chamber only seems to encourage him to share more.

That’s his right and he’s still one of the richest men in the world and is head of the most valuable car company (by market cap) in the world.

As soon as tomorrow we’re likely to get an earnings report from Tesla and it should show if sales growth has continued to slow, which could see Tesla’s share price drop even further if not matched by margin improvements or some other good sign. There will be finger-pointing.

Up first is a big story from Reuters that heavily implies some consumers don’t love hearing Elon Musk imply that the government is bringing in violent undocumented immigrants so they can gain votes, as one example, or that planes could be less safe because airlines/aviation companies are putting effort into hiring people of color and women to be pilots, which is a thing he seems to believe.

The ranks of would-be Tesla buyers in the United States are shrinking, according to a survey by market intelligence firm Caliber, which attributed the drop in part to CEO Elon Musk’s polarizing persona.

[…]

Caliber’s “consideration score” for Tesla, provided exclusively to Reuters, fell to 31% in February, less than half its high of 70% in November 2021 when it started tracking consumer interest in the brand.

But that’s Musk. Certainly, people can’t connect Musk and Tesla. One is a car company and Musk is just one person. Well…

“It’s very likely that Musk himself is contributing to the reputational downfall,” Caliber CEO Shahar Silbershatz told Reuters, saying his company’s survey shows 83% of Americans connect Musk with Tesla.

Reuters spoke to five marketing, polling and car experts who said controversies surrounding Musk’s increasingly right-wing politics and public statements are weighing on Tesla’s brand and demand.

Until there are studies that show explicitly the connection between people buying something else there’s a little bit of inference here, but it’s a reasonable inference, especially now that a survey cited in the article shows more people have an unfavorable view of Musk than either a neutral or favorable view. There’s a known partisan bias when it comes to views on buying EVs and it doesn’t favor Musk at the moment.

I still think that, ultimately, most people do not make major purchasing decisions based on politics. I have two very liberal friends who despise Elon Musk and ended up with a Model Y because it was just the best deal.

But with increasing competition and higher net costs due to interest rates, plus an increase in Model Y prices as of today, it’s certainly not helping.

SAIC To Put Its Workers In ‘Uncomfortable Positions’

SAIC Motor Corp. is China’s largest automaker, with tie-ups to both GM (SAIC-GM-Wuling) and Volkswagen (SAIC-VW). The company has long benefited from support from the Chinese government, which means that it hasn’t exactly been the first company to start laying off its workers.

SAIC has found itself facing sliding sales and profits as it has to battle with a product mix that isn’t as EV-focused and appealing as what BYD is offering while in the midst of a price war with upstarts like Xiaomi.

Because it seemingly doesn’t want to (or can’t) just fire people, there’s another big Reuters report today that, based on a number of sources, says the company is instead looking for cause to get people to quit.

From the article:

One of the sources said most of the reductions at SAIC-VW would come through payouts offered to resigning low performers.

SAIC rates workers on a scale from A to D. In the past, the company has rarely handed out C or D ratings, the two sources said. For 2023, however, about 10% of SAIC-VW employees received the lower ratings, one of the people said.

D-rated employees are being offered payouts to quit, and C-rated workers are being put in “uncomfortable positions” intended to encourage resignations, the source said.

Uncomfortable positions? Like in the back of an SAIC-Volkswagen? Of course, SAIC has denied this report, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Mustang Mach-E Sales Surging After Price Cut

Did it work? Yeah, big time according to analytics firm Cloud Theory. From Automotive News‘s article on the data:

“Across the board, there’s a need for, and a direction toward, a reduction in pricing at a time where that doesn’t make a lot of financial sense for the OEMs,” Rick Wainschel, vice president of data and analytics at Cloud Theory, told Automotive News. “I think Ford had to do what they did; they’re really in a bit of a bind to clear out those Mach-E’s. It was a necessary evil, in a way. But it worked.”

Mustang Mach-E sales fell by more than half in January, when the crossover lost eligibility for a $3,750 federal tax credit as the Biden administration tightened sourcing rules. But since Ford announced the discounts in late February, Cloud Theory said, movement of Mach-E inventory has nearly tripled, based on its daily monitoring of dealership data. It said inventory has declined 9 percent.

“We saw an immediate bump,” Wainschel said. “It started to really catch fire over the last couple of weeks in particular.”

It’s almost as if the EVs are too expensive. Wow. Crazy. Wild thought.

EPA Makes Strict Standards For Buses And Big Trucks

The EPA’s new emissions calculations place some fairly strict standards on the makers of light passenger vehicles, but they’re not as stringent as originally proposed. The response from automakers has been fairly muted.

On Friday, the EPA unrolled its standards for big trucks and buses and the rules are pretty strict.

Per the AP:

The new rules, which take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, will avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades and provide $13 billion in net benefits in the form of fewer hospital visits, lost work days and deaths, the EPA said. The new standards will especially benefit an estimated 72 million people in the United States who live near freight routes used by trucks and other heavy vehicles and bear a disproportionate burden of dangerous air pollution, the agency said.

Unlike automakers, the groups representing the trucking industry have not reacted quite so calmly.

Here’s what the American Trucking Association said in response:

“ATA opposes this rule in its current form because the post-2030 targets remain entirely unachievable given the current state of zero-emission technology, the lack of charging infrastructure and restrictions on the power grid,” said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear. “Given the wide range of operations required of our industry to keep the economy running, a successful emission regulation must be technology neutral and cannot be one-size-fits-all. Any regulation that fails to account for the operational realities of trucking will set the industry and America’s supply chain up for failure.”

While EPA’s final rule includes lower zero-emission vehicle rates for model years 2027-2029, ATA says forced zero-emission vehicle penetration rates in the later years will drive only battery-electric and hydrogen investment, limiting fleets’ choices with early-stage technology that is still unproven.

“The trucking industry is fully committed to the road to zero emissions, but the path to get there must be paved with commonsense,” Spear said. “While we are disappointed with today’s rule, we will continue to work with EPA to address its shortcomings and advance emission-reduction targets and timelines that are both realistic and durable.”

I have to say, “the path to get there must be paved with commonsense” is a good line.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

The new Waxahatchee album is out and it’s so good. Go listen to it. The best country/folk music right now isn’t coming out of Nashville is all I’ll say.

The Big Question

Without getting into your specific politics, on a scale of 1-10 where 1 = WHO CARES and 10 = I CARE VERY MUCH how much does politics influence your consumption?