I have spent most of my career arguing that the auto industry is inherently political and that ignoring politics as an enthusiast is to risk all sorts of negative outcomes. Bans on imported cars and unreasonable limits on aftermarket tuning are just two of the ways that politicians who don’t understand our hobby have tried to harm it in the last few years. Now, though, the opposite has happened. Cars are explicitly political in a way that’s unavoidable.
It’s a real monkey’s paw situation here at The Morning Dump today as people are starting to agree with me that cars are explicitly political but in a way that’s more extreme and less fun than I could have predicted. Yesterday, the President of the United States declared a boycott against Tesla to be illegal. He said today he’s going to purchase a Tesla “as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk” after Tesla’s stock had a bad week.
I very much see cars as a hobby that can bring people of disparate views and backgrounds together. That’s what I see this place as, so I try to be careful not to alienate anyone by only highlighting my views. It’s why this particular moment in time is interesting as a journalist and confounding as an enthusiast.
Tesla had an awful day yesterday in the markets, partially as everyone woke up to the fact that Chinese consumers aren’t going to default to buying Model Ys, and just to compound things, one of the company’s newest competitors is also going to build robots. While we’re doing this, let’s just rip off the bandaid and talk about congestion pricing. It’s become another local issue that is now a national political football, although it seems like people who live in New York are fine with it.
And, just to wrap it up, Ford is going to keep dumping money into Germany as it struggles to make ground in the European market.
The Ed Begley, Jr. Effect Is Real
If you’re a new urbanist or an environmentalist, buying a car has always been political, driving is political, really everything you do as a consumer, in a zero-sum view of the world, is political. The environmental activism of the Clinton Era shifted its focus from the hole in the Ozone layer to global warming, which led to a cry for electric cars, making them political in a way they hadn’t really been before.
GM was the first to really answer the call in a consumer-facing way with the GM EV1. This early EV was heralded by celebrities of the lefty California green variety (California being one of the few places you could lease one). In particular, the actor Ed Begley, Jr. became sort of the face of Hollywood environmentalism. It’s why, when GM decided to take back all the EV1s and destroy them, he even hosted a funeral for the car.
After that point, Begley, Jr. would go on to promote a bunch of other electric cars, including the RAV4. It’s no surprise, then, that when Tesla came out with the first Roadster, the company and its CEO Elon Musk got a lot of support from that same community. Begley, Jr. called his Model S the “best car I’ve ever owned” and even drove it cross-country.
There’s been plenty written about Elon Musk joining the Republican Party, though there’s been some cognitive dissonance required to square a President who seemed fairly anti-EV being embraced by the biggest maker of electric cars in the world. The last few weeks, the dissonance has grown unavoidable.
People have stopped buying Teslas for many reasons, but some of them are likely political. Police are now having to guard Tesla facilities in order to avoid the kind of vandalism that has turned Tesla facilities and owners into a target. I asked last week how much goodwill Tesla could afford to lose, and we’re about to find out.
The “left” has found an easy target in Musk, whose companies benefit from valuations far outsized to their actual earnings. Activists, like unofficial Musk biographer Ed Niedermeyer, have focused on an approach summed up by the #TeslaTakedown hashtag, which includes protests at Tesla service centers.
Yesterday was mostly a bad day for stocks, as the market seemed to react to President Trump’s assertion that maybe a little recession is necessary to make things better (President Trump called it a “period of transition”). Tesla did massively worse as a stock, dropping to $222 at close, which erased all of the bump the company got from the election. There seems to be a lift this morning, but whether that’s a real bounce or a dead cat bounce is anyone’s guess.
The President didn’t wait for the market to open today. Here’s what he said yesterday on Truth Social (Twitter/X was down a lot of yesterday, but it’s still funny that the President saves his more important posts for Truth Social):
To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is “putting it on the line” in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s “baby,” in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for. They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???
First of all, it’s definitely illegal to get together with your friends and to decide to damage property. That’s how the law works. To some, though, this is more like a Boston Tea Party-like movement, wherein attacking a commercial entity connected to a political one makes a bigger point. Honestly, I’m surprised that no one has dumped a Tesla into the Boston Harbor yet. Other people see this as vandalism. And while vandalism is obviously illegal, just getting together with your friends and boycotting a car company sure seems like free speech to me.
This is weird, though, right? President Trump’s own right-wing movement in this country has been vehemently against electric cars and has even attacked electric car owners. But now he’s going to buy, I presume, a Cybertruck and tell other people to buy electric cars?
It’s clearly weighing on Musk a bit, who talked to Fox host Larry Kudlow in an interview about this yesterday. Kudlow asked him how he stayed on top of DOGE and his businesses, to which Musk replied, sighing, “With great difficulty.”
I have my own political beliefs that are not hard to find or, really, hard to intuit. One of my strongest beliefs, and this is a non-partisan one (I hope), is that we all do better when we can all communicate. The last few years have seen a Balkanization of thought, with people breaking off into little groups without much contact with the outside world. I don’t think that helps. If we can talk about cars on a level playing field, maybe we can talk about other things without the immediate anger or judgment that has made political conversation so hard.
There are other car websites that are very good at making it clear you’re not welcome if you don’t share their politics, and that’s totally fine for them. Some of the people who write for those sites have been critical of me for not doing the same. That’s valid criticism, but I just think an approach that tells a lot of people to go to hell isn’t going to change many minds. This country won’t get better with one side overwhelmingly prevailing over the other.
If you put crabs in a bucket, you don’t need to put a lid on it, because the other crabs will always pull down any crab that tries to get away. That’s a terrible way to live and I, for one, choose not to live that way.
[Ed Note: Just to state it explicitly: We welcome Democrats, Republicans, and everyone else to The Autopian, both as readers and writers. -DT].
Xpeng Is Going To Do Robots
Car companies, which rely on robots to make cars, love making humanoid ones. Honda had ASIMO, GM had Robonaut, and Tesla has Optimus. While Tesla saw its stock fall yesterday, Xpeng had the opposite happen as it announced it would be building humanoid robots and flying cars. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the company has also seen its sales grow instead of shrink in China.
“Xpeng shares have got a lift this year from its improving monthly sales figures, demonstrating to investors that its product strategy are working well despite intense competition,” said Steven Leung, executive director at UOB Kay Hian Hong Kong Limited. While the company’s latest updates on flying cars and humanoid robots could boost sentiment, “it’s still distant for those projects to translate into earnings contributions.”
FYI, we’re also doing robots. The Autopian is doing robots. Become a member now! Robots!
New Yorkers Now Support Congestion Pricing
After much delay, the New York State/City plan to charge an extra toll to certain drivers going into lower Manhattan went into effect. This is called “Congestion pricing,” and the goal was to reduce the number of car trips into the city and increase revenue for transit.
It was a political hot button issue for all of a minute, until it went into effect and most people saw that it worked as promised. Now, for the first time, New Yorkers seem to be in support, with a new poll from Siena College (who will not win the MAAC Basketball Tournament) showing more support than opposition according to The NYC Streetsblog:
A new poll released Monday from Siena College found that more New York City residents approve of congestion pricing than don’t, a dramatic turnaround from a previous poll by the same firm.
Now, 42 percent of city residents told the pollsters that they think congestion pricing should stick around, despite the Trump administration’s attempt to end it, while only 35 percent of city voters think Trump should end it.
When Siena last asked about the toll in December, support for congestion pricing among city voters was underwater: Only 32 percent favored the poll and 56 percent opposed it.
The President called the plan “Dead” and the Secretary of Transportation is trying to stop it, saying:
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair. The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut. Finally, it impedes the flow of commerce into New York by increasing costs for trucks, which in turn could make goods more expensive for consumer. Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn’t be reserved for an elite few.”
The interesting thing about living in New York as a non-native is that I always had the impression that New York got a disproportionate amount of attention. Now that I’ve lived here for a while, I realize it’s just because we’re awesome and everyone is obsessed with us.
Ford Is Going To Try To Save German Operations
Everyone knows that Ford or Ford-associated companies have been involved in two of the greatest cars of all time, the Mazda Miata (out of Japan) and the Merkur XR4Ti (out of Germany). Oh, how far the mighty have fallen. Ford is now having to put $5 billion into the German branch of the company to keep it afloat:
Ford announced Monday that it will inject the money to support the ongoing transformation of its business in Europe and increase long-term competitiveness. The money will fund a plan to turn around Ford’s German subsidiary, Ford-Werke GmbH.
The Dearborn-based automaker has already made significant investments in its German operations in recent years, including a $2 billion upgrade of its plant in Cologne to produce electric vehicles.
Europe is a tough market now, though the possibility of Germany untightening a bit on spending is a sign that maybe things can turn around in the medium term. Hopefully, it’ll be just long enough to get a successor to the XR4Ti.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
While we’re still talking about great pop/indie acts from the early part of the 21st Century, I don’t think any song landed quite like “Time To Pretend” from MGMT did. It’s not “Yellow,” but it’s pretty good.
The Big Question
Was buying (or selling) your car a political decision?
Top photo: GM/Tesla
I tend to skip the comments more and more due to the vitriol from people that are obviously right leaning. That’s been demonstrated in these comments as well.
I grew up with muscle cars. Drove them, wrenched on them. Drove several HEMI power Dodges and bought a Tesla EV for the speed and I am a tech geek. I will buy another EV but not another Tesla due to politics. I won’t dump my car because it’s a terrible financial move for me. Sure there are a lot of great people at Tesla doing great things but Elon overshadows all of that.
Hell i was a weirdo that like the way the Cybertruck looked because it was so weird but its radioactive to me.
I am old enough to have seen L.A covered in smog. I have been on oil spill response support. Seen first hand the damage to our fisheries and rivers in California because of my work. I have picked garbage from the ocean on SCUBA dives in Monterey. The environment is something I hold dear. Only one side is battling to actually make it worse.
I worked on political campaigns for Republicans but the party left me behind. I don’t fully agree with either side but only one stands against nearly everything I stand for now and I can pinpoint the moment.
Car culture groups have always been terrible and it’s only been amplified with the internet. I remember the hate and racist remarks about Japanese cars when they were first getting here and continuing much later. The terms people use for Subarus even today. I have no room in my life for hateful people who want those that I love to not exist so yes a car can be a political statement.
I enjoy the Autopian articles and all the weirdness that is embraced here and I will continue to read and will spend less time in the comments. I wish I could engage in more well meaning discourse but that’s not reality.
Love to all you Autopians.
Gonna need the US head of state to be a little more specific on what a “great” American is because he could have just said “Americans”
Happy to see your viewpoints on non-partisan communication Matt. Hopefully the majority of the country will find it’s way back to this mindset sooner than later. The current situation is not helping anyone in the long run…
“ And while vandalism is obviously illegal, just getting together with your friends and boycotting a car company sure seems like free speech to me.”
That isn’t free speech… it is the invisible hand!
It can be both…
A sitting president doing a car commercial for his biggest donor is maybe the most failed state thing I’ve ever seen America do.
I mean, I don’t know what the poorest country is, but I don’t think their head of state would do this.
The idea that car buying choices are political is nothing new.
College professors in the 50’s-70’s driving VW Beetles, Saabs or Volvos were definitely making a political statement with their choices of vehicles.
So were hippies in their VW busses in the 60s/70s.
So were our grandparents in their enormous 70’s Lincolns.
So were our parents in their 1980s BMWs, Saabs and Volvos.
Nothing new here.
410 comments has to be an Autopian record.
420 now! Wait, 421 after I post.
EDIT; 423 now
The last car I bought, was a Honda Accord assembled in Ohio in 2017. It was not a political decision in the slightest. I would have bought it if it had been assembled in Japan or Timbuktu. That it was built in the US was a nice little bonus, but it was not a factor in the purchase decision.
For Mr. Trump to call a boycott of Tesla “illegal” reveals his fundamental misunderstanding of the freedoms afforded us under the First Amendment.
If his purchase of a Tesla is with taxpayer funds, where’s DOGE when you need it? The President is not allowed to drive on public roads in perpetuity.
Words mean nothing to him.
Nothing matters to him except what he can benefit from, rule of law or reason be damned.
The two cars I purchased: Volt and Camaro. Buying a Chevy Volt was an economic decision. Buying a Chevy Camaro was an emotional decision.
I now refuse to buy Tesla because of politics, but I will continue shopping for EV’s for economic reasons.
(If you do the math, total cost of ownership on *used* EV’s is amazing compared to ICE daily drivers.)
I do think that having places and spaces where people of different political stripes overlap and interact is very important. Most of our communication, media consumption, and increasingly where we live and what career we choose seems to be siloed by political views.
This isn’t good for anyone. Ideas of all stripes need testing and challenging
I am pretty left-wing these days. That began as basic working-class awareness through watching my dad as a union rep. But I grew up in a rural area and absorbed some pretty homophobic and racist views. Those views were primarily dispelled simply by being around LGBT people and people of different races and ethnicities in college and beyond. I was pretty quick to realize that these people were just people too. I don’t think that shift would have happened without that proximity.
“I very much see cars as a hobby that can bring people of disparate views and backgrounds together.”
At what point is this a fool’s errand at best and actively cowardly at worst? Only after the camps open? It’s not like disparate views are what tax policy should be anymore. Would you want to bring people of disparate views together of one of those people is a loud and proud member of the KKK? We’re now at the point where there’s essentially irreconcilable differences in the direction this country should take, and one of the sides is steeped in bigotry and hatred.
We have a president who wants to turn the country into a crony capitalist dictatorship. The head of the car company in question here literally did multiple nazi salutes at this president’s inauguration. The president did a goddamn meme coin rug pull just before he took office. This administration is waging a disgusting, hateful campaign against trans people. At what point do we say “actually, these views aren’t welcome here?”
And to be clear, if you are a republican now, you support all of this. Every elected republican in the federal government supports all this. I don’t want to hear those views, frankly.
This is, quite frankly, deranged thinking. You need to figure out why there is so much anger inside of you that you are directing out at others. You should also want to remove all political content from your social media feeds, so that you are not constantly bombarded with hateful smears of your fellow Americans.
I was able to cure myself of similar displaced rage via meditation, but a lot of people haven’t developed that skill. Barring the ability to meditate, the most important thing to do is to talk to a mental health professional about these unhealthy views.
You can get better, I believe in you. You will be so much happier when you confront whatever feelings are putting you in such a state, as you will then find them dissipate.
So, you want to:
We saw the Nazi salutes.
We watched the Trump meme scam.
We’ve watched Trump and Elon work together to harm working class Americans and the economy to their own benefit.
Meditate on why you’re willing to let that happen.
Because they have chosen to be a completely passive non-entity and are, therefore, very comfortable with bigots and fascists. At least enough to keep the nazis from harshing their buzz.
Holy projection! You might really want to think about who you call fascists. The problem with the Brown Shirts wasn’t the color of the shirts.
It is the people doing the nazi salutes, claiming they are completely above the law, proudly promoting bigotry, perfectly aligned with Christian nationalists & white supremacists at home and dictatorships like Russia, I am calling fascists. You know, the fascists. You are free to vocalize your support for all of the above if you like. Just don’t be surprised when you are treated appropriately.
The Left branded Elon a Nazi as soon as he bought Twitter and went on his free-speech crusade. He has been trolling all the buffoons with Nazi salutes since. Because everyone on the left has so aggressively cloistered themselves, no one ever checks the primary sources.
Elon Musk is pretty much the polar opposite of a Nazi. The anti-free speech, anti-science, pro-racial discrimination Left is very much not the opposite of the Nazi Party.
The Right/Left divide is a false dichotomy used to distract low information voters from the true political spectrum: libertarian/totalitarian.
Jesus, that is the laziest line of thinking. His long-standing bigotry is well documented, and his current support for extremist, authoritarian right-wing ideology is only written off by people who support those ideas or are too lazy to do anything about it. The current administration and Musk meet every element that defines fascism.
You have zero idea of my beliefs other than the fact I understand Musk and Trump are fascists, and, by definition, so are their supporters. You need to define me as “leftist” because you can’t deal with the reality of who Musk and Trump are and need a lazy answer that supports your preconceived beliefs.
It is also no surprise that your libertarian-style fantasy world is part of this detachment from reality. I’ve read Rand and the Austrians. I appreciate the exercise, but like all absolutist fantasies, it falls apart immediately upon meeting with reality.
I don’t support either Trump or Musk. But I’m tired of this absurd culture on the Left of trying to silence every voice that causes them slightest bit of cognitive dissonance. The current day Democratic Party has turned against every single classical liberal value and now their supporters, who live in a profound state of cognitive dissonance when facing the reality that the political poles flipped again and now they’re are backing the bad guys over the (currently) less bad guys are going nuts because their entire worldview is collapsing. The bubble will be pierced, or the Republicans will dominate the next election cycle even more.
Ah, so you are so clueless that you think there will be elections. There won’t be. Stay in your fantasy bubble where feigning detachment lets you be profoundly lazy while cultivating your false sense of superiority; you’ll do less damage there. You might want to tone down the defense of the actual fascists if you want to pretend you don’t support them.
If you’re having trouble reasoning your way out of beliefs that you didn’t reason your way into, try mushrooms. Plus, maybe shut off your social media and read a newspaper.
I haven’t been on social media for years. Again, a bad assumption, which is what underpins all your beliefs.
Enjoy your passive life. The one based on a long series of false equivalencies allows you to pretend that everything sucks, so watching everyone burn is a valid form of entertainment. It is the philosophy of an emo teen who didn’t get the phone they wanted. Which is basically what the facile libertarian nonsense is for middle-aged white men.
Of course, despite being 100% passive, you are desperate for attention, so you can’t help but chime in and stir the pot. But in the end, you have only admitted to being passive and pointless.
Because… newspapers are more trustworthy historically LOL.
Are you buying the Sun, or Weekly World News?
Also, psychedelics are your key to understanding reality? That tracks.
Translation: Stop calling fascists… fascists! It’s so mean!
Seriously, dude.
It’s literally what you’re doing.
I don’t use psychedelics to meditate, because I can enter that state without them. Most people cannot. For them, I usually recommend mushrooms. After using mushrooms once or twice, most people can access that state more easily without the use of an aid.
I only subscribe to the WSJ and NYT. I don’t know where you get your news, but it is clearly is not a good source.
I am not supporting Trump or Musk, I am pointing out the truth. I’m sorry that truth causes you to feel pain in your brain, about 1 inch above the temples. Enjoy your bubble, fight tooth and nail to keep anyone from piercing it.
I’m so proud of you, for being able to enter the “state of nothingness.”
You must spend a lot of time there.
I mean, in between coming back to Autopian to write overly-wordy explanations of your douchified lifestyle.
WSJ and NYT are your ONLY sources? And yet here you are. What a joke.
Your reading comprehension is clearly poor, but I do appreciate you reminding me how pathetic it is to argue with someone like you in the comments.
Holy crap, PLEASE enlighten me in how the left discriminates racially. Did some white guy not get a job he wanted?
I don’t want to bring down the seriousness of this conversation but love your username. O Fortuna!
I meditate every day. That’s why I can’t let your absurd left wing religious beliefs have any space in my head. They all immediately fall apart under the slightest of scrutiny, which is why the entire Left is anti free speech now.
Yeah, religious. Ok.
Nobody is stopping you from speaking… which you do, at length, without any real purpose.
But see my original post. You are the one trying to control the conversation. Maybe go find someplace to meditate about why you feel like your voice is the only one that matters.
Yes. Clearly you are the one with the important things to say that we all need to hear. You must be an amazing intellect. I apologize.
You keep coming back, so you’re clearly engaged. My beliefs do have space in your head!
As someone who has to deal with this administration’s actions in the real world, kindly take your “just get off the internet and be nice bro” take and shove it.
Maybe you should try out that advice, too. You sound unwell.
You are in no place to diagnose anyone else, which you have done more than once in this thread. Stay in your lane.
Maybe just meditate about why you feel the need to be such a pompous blowhard in the comment section.
75% of our country did not vote against this, should we abandon all of them?
Amen. What people don’t seem to realize is that the “let’s all talk together” attitude, at this point in time, VALIDATES the fascists.