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
You don’t have to be immensely involved in politics to realize that Elon is a shithead. There’s plenty of companies with conservative-leaning CEO’s that I still support because they otherwise make good products and are fair to their employees. Elon has crossed a line to where even normal people find him to be unbearable, and as Tesla’s CEO it reflects poorly on Tesla. If Tesla wants to save themselves, they need to oust Elon ASAP and replace him with somebody more rational and better at running a car company.
That being said, cars are inherently pretty political, because regulations (or the lack thereof) greatly affect what kind of cars get built (hybrid/EV vs gas-guzzler). That being said, I don’t automatically hate people that drive cars I dislike, that kind of thinking isn’t useful to society.
A good summary IMO. Do I think or expect any CEOs to be in perfect alignment with my views? Not at all. Do I know what their views are or even how to find them out? Also nope.
I always argue about this with other left-leaning people, there’s this impossible purity culture that demonizes anybody that isn’t 100% locked in to the hive mind. It’s just meaningless division that doesn’t help anybody.
I’m always a little wary of people with really strong business opinions unless it’s clear cut. Too often it comes across like this:
“Nope. I won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because one time their former CEO’s 100 charities had one of them that hired a guest speaker for a retreat who said maybe we should think about stricter rules for trans athletes in middle school, un-f*cking-acceptable!”
or
“Nope, I won’t shop at Target or Amazon or Macy’s or Trader Joe’s or Lululemon or Five Guys or Costco because they believe in the woke agenda about ‘treating people equally’ and that’s not in the Bible. Shut up, no it isn’t.”
I have a pretty high bar for boycott — yet Musk has been there for years, IMO. Just a complete d*ck of a leader, major creep factor, ultra-weird personal life, running too many companies at once. Red flags everywhere. Doge/Trump just sealed the deal for a lot of people.
“You knew I was a snake, b*tch!” –Natural Born Killers
Yeah, Musk has been a giant red flag for a while, he’s just a lot more open about it now. My standard for boycotting a company is if they’re donating huge sums of money to directly conservative causes and/or forcing religion upon employees, like Uline and Hobby Lobby.
“Nope. I won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because one time their former CEO’s 100 charities had one of them that hired a guest speaker for a retreat who said maybe we should think about stricter rules for trans athletes in middle school, un-f*cking-acceptable!”
It was a *bit* more than that:
Issues arose between Chick-fil-A and the LGBTQ community in June 2012 after Dan T. Cathy, the fast food restaurant’s chief executive officer, made a series of public comments opposing same-sex marriage. This followed reports that Chick-fil-A’s charitable endeavor, the S. Truett Cathy-operated WinShape Foundation, had donated millions of dollars to organizations seen by LGBTQ activists as hostile to LGBTQ rights.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_and_LGBTQ_people
Yup. I campaigned for term 1 obama before I realized what a monster the DNC has become. I think the thing that makes me the most angry is that while I really, really do not like the GOP, I am forced to support them because the DNC has become batshit insane, often in ways that affect me personally living in a blue state. I’m not sure if the american left realizes just how fucking far they have wandered from the center. Trump is winning on what are essentially 90’s democrat strategies (personality is different, but his actual policies are just copy-pasta from the Clinton playbook). Screeching about how this is “fascism” and “nazism” a) really does not convince anyone and b) is actually pretty goddamn hyprocritical when you actually bother to look into it.
I bet 100% of the people agree with this take. The trouble comes when you ask which group is in the hive mind.
I think ousting Musk will be great for the car company but will likely torpedo the stock price. If he’s gone, even fewer people will believe it is an AI company. Then its stock price will have to get closer to the reality of other car manufacturers.
Bingo – only Musk is making politics a part of his brand, maybe most of his brand at this point.
This.
Red or Blue don’t mean a lot.
But being an asshole does, always…fuck him.
He is a shithead but he clearly also has issues that have been left untreated (except perhaps ill-advised self-treatment.) With this country’s abysmal record on mental health care it’s not surprising that while he could afford it, he probably can’t get an appointment either. And don’t get me started on child care, clearly the cost of child care really IS an issue if the richest man in the world has to apparently drag one of his toddlers around with him all day every day. Maybe he could work on that instead.
But seriously:
As much as Elon Musk is failing the country he lives in, he’s really failing the company he leads (figuratively anyway). But more than him failing it, it is the board of Tesla failing everyone. If Jim Farley spent literally all his time on Donald Trump’s lap in Washington and Florida, Ford’s board would very quickly pack his golden parachute for him. If the shareholder vote re Musk’s compensation package were now rather than earlier in the year I think it would have had a different result.
Not that it matters but I thought product endorsement wasn’t allowed for political figures.
I’m a sci-fi tech nerd, also did time as a mechanic in my younger years, so buying an EV was purely what I was interested in, it’s cool futuristic stuff but also requires minimal maintenance.
But cars are inherently political sadly, or have been made to be, since the beginning, buying foreign cars is anti-American, then buying a hybrid made you a liberal dbag(see South Park), then EVs were being ‘pushed’ on us so obviously have to retaliate by rolling coal on any you see, and on and on.
Most things that Trump does would have been unthinkable for previous presidents but here we are.
I drive a Mazda. My uncle said I should drive a Chevrolet because that supports American workers. But, my 2016 Mazda6 is an inherently better car than a 2016 Chevrolet Malibu. Could I have gotten a 2016 Toyota Camry and supported American workers that way? Yes. But I didn’t want to, and I was fortunately free to spend my money at the time (late 2015) as I wanted.
Same goes with those that choose to buy Teslas now. They aren’t, however, free from judgment or worse (unfortunately if it’s vandalism) from others as a result.
My Mazda may not have supported American workers, but as far as I know, Masahiro
Moro and Tom Donnelly haven’t done Hitler-esque salutes on national TV and called social security and Medicare “entitlements.”
I’ll go even further and say that your vote for Mazda back then is part of why we have even better Mazdas today, including those built right here in the US. Send your money overseas is a vote, and it ultimately helped create jobs and GDP here because Mazda (like so many others) saw the benefit of decentralized manufacturing.
But I’ll admit I take the long view, often to a fault.
Social security and medicare are entitlements. It’s not a bad word. We’re entitled to them because we pay into them throughout our working lives. The twisting of the term to mean something negative is a political ploy that has somehow worked.
Buying my last car was a “hey I need a car to actually live” purchase. Although, I do wonder what political statement a Jeep Compass makes? /s
FIFY. Outside of Buffalo, for some magically sudden reason Syracuse, not a single person thinks the rest of NY is awesome. And between those two, its wings, the Bills, and SU.
North of NYC, NY is pretty awesome. (SUNY system is amazing)
The Buffalo Bills, the only real NY football team.
Anyone who thinks the Giants & Jets are NY teams is just afraid to live in Jersey, I swear.
I like it up here, I just don’t get out enough to actually enjoy the state. The places I haven’t been would be shocking to see lol
The rest of NY has wine/beer making, fishing, camping, less congestion, affordable compared to NYC housing and lots of regional foods. Like salt potatoes for Syracuse, plates for Rochester, spiedies for Binghamton and of course wings for Buffalo.
You get less congestion in most of the small towns. Ithaca and Buffalo, for example, are still horrendous. Rochester is a bit like Syracuse before it was decided 81 somehow was a bad thing for the city.
This summer’s gonna SUCK if you have to drive up to Syracuse. That roundabout is going to make traffic unbearable.
Don’t forget one of North America’s most iconic racetracks, Watkin’s Glen, up in the finger lakes region.
The old douchecanoe was a civilian Hummer.
The new douchecanoe is a cybertruck.
Cancel the money to build more charging stations but then endorse buying a EV.
I am proud to say my last car buy was in no way political. Instead, it was an impulsive, rash decision fueled by happy chemicals.
Whether that’s a better reason to buy a car or not is up to you…
If you put rusty crayfish in a bucket they will tear each other apart until there are none left alive. I sincerely hope we are not headed there.
I’m sure there are mistakes up there. But, there isn’t a single CEO on this list I would not buy from because of politics. I irrationally hate VAG, Nissan, and Stellantis, primarily due to quality.
But this list….
Dieselgate personally insulted me as an engineer, and I am still not yet recovered or willing to forgive.
I’m from Michigan. Car choices being political was thrust upon me at birth.
I don’t really do politics. When I bought my car, I was shopping first by price and then by style. It didn’t matter where it came from. I will do the same thing again, if I can every afford a new car again. My last car purchase was from the UK but it was used 🙂
I feel sorry for the hard working fed workers who got fired for getting a promotion in the last year…
I like it here because it’s nuanced. Your chief off-road guru has the sense to say “no, really, if you’re commuting and driving around and not living in a Monster commercial 110% of the time, get a hybrid.” Your other editor in chief guy believes that three digit horsepower numbers are witchcraft, a dark and Eldritch enginemancy whispered by grim nerds with slide rules. Your publisher knows admits despite the cult of Subaru, his was an annoying near-lemon the whole time. Your captive designer is a hilarious goth crank but he knows his shit, damnit. The only one I don’t care for is SWG, because if I go to Wilmington with my girlfriend, I’m coming home single. (I also love that Lewin is sharing his troubles being a car guy trapped in an apartment, Thomas continues to write for the site even though it’d be fair game to tell us to fuck off, and Peter makes sure the headers are twisted just right. And Mercedes is off rambling and roaming and researching and must pour every bit of herself into every piece.)
I’ve seen other sites go way too hard into MILITARY HELL YEAH KILLIN PEOPLE or Unthinkable Atrocities and Human Rights Violations as Automakers Plan New Gas Engine, and though I’m well and truly leftist, neither of those fixated or reactionary”perspectives” does anything for me.
I think you should get 8 mpg sometimes. I think you should get 40+ most of the time. Your tires shouldn’t be 36 or 42 inches, unless you’re off-roading, in which case, go nuts! It might take more than one type of vehicle to do that and that’s okay!
If you doubt any of this, go to a meetup. I was beaming for days afterwards, just so happy to meet the people and learn from them and hear their stories, like that lovely 1970 911SE, and a V-Strom, and a Volvo hearse.
Oh gosh, what am I going to be like when I’m 70?
Hey kids, want to hear about a Studebaker tow truck? It all started in the year 18… *kids fall asleep.*
That’s a superpower and you should embrace it.
Oh man, I was thinking of rambling like roaming, what a fine poor choice of words on my part.
That said, I don’t feel like you’d be *that* sad about that fate, haha.
How I Met Your Motor Vehicle
S9E11: “The Smart… no, not that Smart, and not that one either — the other, other Smart”
“Please, let me water your plants?”
Handsome Goose he is.
Was buying (or selling) your car a political decision? Maybe? I didn’t really think of it that way when I was shopping, but I knew I wouldn’t buy a Tesla (cuz Musk) and I was also weary of accidentally purchasing a Chinese Buick or something so I researched point of origin as much as possible.
The Vin makes it easy to tell where something was made…
Musky has been waging war against his own customers. He can fuck the fuck off if he doesn’t like the consequences. People have a right to utterly destroy a company through all legal means if they feel like it. He’s a fraud and deserves to lose. I actively want him to fail in every single thing and suffer for being such a asshole. I repeat, he is a bad guy.
If you are a Republican, I don’t hate you and I sure hope you don’t hate me. I don’t want you dead. I try to understand other’s perspectives, so I hope you can spare the same for me. Drive on.
Isn’t this the same guy who told his X Advertisers to F-off and then tried to sue them when they did?
Ketamine is a helluva drug.
Poor maligned ketamine.
He’s the classic asshole persona. Firmly believes he can do whatever he wants without consequence, but anyone else can’t be mean to him. Maybe that’s narcissism? No clue.
As a Republican, I don’t hate you either.
And honestly, your take is fair. We laughed at Bud Light for taking a stance and failing; what Musk does with Tesla is only fair at this point.
Appreciated, when we actually talk to each other most of us agree on a lot. Sure, there are hot button issues on each side, but most of us just want to live our lives.
Most of the hot button issues are “edge cases” anyway.
Let’s be honest… both sides essentially want the same things… just in a different order and through different means.
Valid point, I travel across the country for work. I do not bring up politics at work, yet can agree on many basic points with most I come across. All politics is local too, and the needs of a Texas rancher are not the same as those of an NYC apartment dweller. This often gets lost in the noise.
So much is the way everything is framed as an existential crisis by the media and our political parties.
Need more clicks… Calm people don’t rant and click.
Maybe we need a third, Rational party. Stop all the culture war BS dividing everyone but serving little actual purpose.
Well most of the free world has more parties than 2.
Also most countries have these systems for pitching stuff for the parlaments to handle. Like here in Finland we’ve got this electronic system that you can get signatures for. And if it reaches certain limit of signatures, government has to vote for it.
That way we got our Nato membership year a go.
And I would expect you guys vote to get rid of the 25 year rule.
It looks to me like the largest comments sections are politically motivated,even on the Autopian site.
I wouldn’t call those things comparable. Budweiser had like one ad where a trans woman drank a beer. I don’t recall their CEO trying to dismantle the federal government and give contracts to his own companies.
Man, I saw some MAGA folks really get unhinged about Bud Light. It’s beer. They advertised it with a trans person. Life goes on.
I laughed at the very concept of Bud Light being consumable.
Bud Light didn’t take a stance – they folded so fast that an entire anti-trans movement felt empowered by it, and anyone who was supportive of trans rights felt betrayed by the company.
Maybe if they had taken a stance things would have gone better for them.
Drive on
I don’t want anyone to suffer, there are plenty of things I don’t like and people who do those things that I don’t like, but I don’t want them to suffer, I just want them to cease doing those things when they limit or outright eliminate the rights every human should have.
Unfortunately, I’m not that good if a person. I want two people in particular to suffer hugely for the hubris.
I’m torn by Telsa. On the minus side:
But…
I don’t want a Tesla but the cheap prices on the used market call to me. I’m kinda of hoping their collapse in value will drop values of all EVs and bring vehicles that don’t make a political statement more affordable.
Same – they actually built the only viable interstate charging network. That is no small feat and should be applauded. I wish the face of the company was not so – visible and Nazi.
I’ve been joking about starting a business like back in the day where you could buy a fiberglass hood(truck lid?) for a VW bug and end up with a Rolls Royce Grill. Same idea but for Tesla.
Since you can almost get a Pontiac emblem out of vandalized Tesla T, I would think about fake body cladding, nostrils and some vinyl wrap that looks like peeling clear coat and you might be able to get away with putting a Sunfire badge on it.
Needs more body cladding. Grand Am’s are getting thin on the ground up here.
I think where I am, I would get less nasty looks in a Grand Am on donut spares and mis-matched doors than a cherry Model 3.
My bet is you wouldn’t get a second look. Buy an Alitma.
Hell, I think an Altima would get less dirty looks than a Model 3. I should make a business putting body panels on Teslas that make them look like crapcans.
Who pays attention to an Altima? It is an NPC of the automotive world.
Not where I live. It’s the generic thug that will try to rob or mug you when you aren’t looking. The Rav4 is a generic NPC.
I think the political overlap is unavoidable now, especially thanks to the Nazi who runs one of the world’s biggest and highest profile car companies. The Autopian isn’t becoming involved in politics by choice: Politics are taking center stage in most of what we do now.
That last thing bugs me. Do you what politician really matters in my life? The local mayor and city council. They are the ones that define my property taxes and what it goes to. Some have been morons and do stupid stuff like shut down two critical roads going the same direction at the same time, instead of one at a time, so traffic is Horrible. Some have been good, like the ones that dramatically increased teacher pay and ended up with great schools as a result. These local people are what really impacts my life.
But instead, we’ve got a pile of people in DC that can’t seem to make my life better only worse, regardless of intentional and competence. I’ve worked for 30+ years in corporate America. You know who are the best top executives? The ones that don’t do anything. Same with everyone in DC. Do nothing, let the locals deal with the real problems.
And this yahoo has done more in 4 weeks than Biden did in 4 years.
Car purchases have always carried a sense of personal identity. Whether you bought a luxury coachbuilt whatever in 1920 or a Model T. Personal identity is always associated with politics, whether people admit it or not. The irony about our identities? We define them based on what other people think.
“I want to look cool”, buys a Mustang hoping chicks dig it and other dudes will respect him.
“I want to look tough”, buys a full-size pickup to commute on the highway, hoping nobody notices how insecure he is.
Honestly, if we just taught people to forget what everyone else thinks the world would be a better place.
Always was. Twenty years ago it was Hummer versus Prius. Twenty years before that it was foreign or domestic.
well said and said way shorter than I did.
Maybe for others, but not for me. Effected by politics? Yes, but not because of my politics.
For example: Without the Chicken Tax I’d probably be driving a Nissan eNV200 now, instead I’m driving the Leaf, whose drivetrain was put into the NV200 to make the eNV200. Would I rather have the eNV200? Hell yes, but because of bad politics leading to bad policy I got screwed out of my small electric van.
If not buying a car from a Nazi-saluting 4chan-grade edgelord is illegal, call me Outlaw Stef. To use a brilliant phrase from one of the protest signs, oligargle my balls, Elon.
I’ve long described Tesla as a brilliant company in need of an adult — not just the bare-minimum of “not a far-right bunghole,” but someone who can set realistic deadlines, advertise the state of its tech more realistically (read: not call something self-driving that isn’t) and treat his workforce better. I really feel bad for the company’s employees who are caught up in this — the ones I’ve met are genuinely nice folks who don’t throw up sieg heils at the function! They deserve better, we deserve better as a society that shares the roads with these cars, and that isn’t likely to happen unless they get more responsible leadership.
Until this year, I’ve been torn on Musk. He’s a snake oil salesman and a liar and the like. BUT his giant pile of Horsecrap has lead to Telsa stock being worth a lot more than it should be. Even today, Telsa stock is overvalued, because there are still a ton of suckers that believe that the light shines out of Elon’s every orifice. This gives Telsa a lot more capital to play with than a similar sized car manufacturer with an unknown CEO.
Telsa has been riding a tiger for over a decade. There’s no way for them to easily get off.
People asked me for years why I never invested in Tesla.
Same reason I never invested in Apple until Tim Cook arrived.
Cult of personality (and weak succession) is far too risky in the modern era of business.
I had the same internal struggle when I signed up for the starlink beta years ago. Elon is a douche, but I live in a place that cell signal doesn’t even reach my house.
Right or wrong, I was able to look past the CEO when deciding if I ever wanted more than 2 Mbps download due to lack of legacy carrier infrastructure.
Tim Apple damn it!
Get it right! /s
No war, but culture war baby!
This is just the natural conclusion of reactionary politics. Its inherent goal is to politicalize everything and anything. One could try to live separate from politics. But, because everything became political, one can never truly escape politics. And as the current power attempts to increase its grip on day to day life, it’s an exercise in naivety, to not engage. As when the village is burning down, probably should look out for flames.
With reactionary politics, every action has an equal an opposite reaction. Musk is experiencing the natural consequences given as recourse to the average persons in Capitalism. The fact that they’re attempting to outlaw a boycott, while hilarious, should be deeply concerning. This is literally declaring a collective thought illegal. Boycotts have been the most accepted recourse in Capitalism. To infringe, no matter how unreasonable any sort of government recourse may be. Is a direct violation of anything we deem free speech. So, in terms of car buying. It’s extra political now. Always kinda has been, buying domestic and what not. There’s no way around it. Society has a real thing for tribalism. Now though, everything is under the gaze of the New Power. Any action will be examined under action/reaction to the New Cathedral. And a majority of voting persons have chosen this, twice.
Actually, the goal of all power-hungry megalomaniacs is to divide and conquer. You want to be a minority in charge of everyone, make sure your electorate never finds common ground, keep them fighting each other and they’ll never notice you stripping the country for parts.
Trumpy doesn’t understand the law. He thinks it’s whatever serves him on any given day.
I am Canadian, and I think Tesla is done internationally. Trump will either prop it up or buy it as a reward for his boss but nothing short of Musk in prison will make a difference outside the US. And organized douchbagmobile (CT) vandalism really should be encouraged.
This is what I disagree with and I’m glad the Autopian doesn’t promote. I know people with Teslas who are good people and do not align at all with Musk’s politics. To assume that every single person with a Tesla is Musk Jr. is ridiculous. Damaging their property does nothing to hurt Musk.
Autopian does a great job of staying fair and open. Others are rightly or probably wrongly lashing out, and probably do need to be told to take a breath. At the same time, don’t underestimate the level of fury in Canada.
Your fury is perfectly valid until you promote and encourage the idea of actually damaging the personal property of one of your fellow citizens that was likely purchased before all of this became more clear. That’s the point that you become the problem yourself. Don’t go there.
Damaging their property causes MORE money to flow to Musk, where do people think repair parts come from?
Trump already did all he’s going to do. He ‘said’ he was going to buy a Tesla. He says lots and lots and lots of things, but most of them don’t happen. Still waiting for that health care bill…
He’s not going to buy Tesla either. He doesn’t have that kind of money no matter what he wants us to believe.
But I massively agree with you that Tesla is at the cliff’s edge.
No vandalism (that’s a crime, even in Canada), but for sure an overt thumbs down every time I see one.
I remember by in-laws went ballistic when we bought a Hyundai and not a Chevy. All car decisions are political.
I don’t think Musk care much about Tesla at this point. The shine is off that apple and he’s on to new toys. Even if it goes under he’s still rich as hell. I feel bad for the founders and workers at Tesla. A deal was made with the devil and now they have to pay the price.
I agree. We touched on this point back when Musk terminated his SuperCharger crew.
Which he then hire some of back? History repeats itself evidently.
As an aside, one of my son’s friends that works for VA contractor got ‘terminated’ in this Doge mess, was brought back this week when a Judge said that was not legal. He’s not optimistic.
If wanting to hurl my Sorento at South Korea counts as a political decision, then yes.
I have to admit that I stopped visiting another auto website that starts with a J and end with a k because it was clear they have a very strong political bias that started to make it feel more like a polical commentary site than an automotive site.
Tesla makes some of the best EVs in the US. I’ve owned other brands and plug-in hybrids. We own 2 EVs currently and won’t be going back to ICE vehicles mainly because I believe I need to do as much as possible to reduce CO2 emissions. That said I don’t agree with all the positions of any political party and have voted for candidates from both of the major parties. I just don’t vote for folks far out on either end of the spectrum. I do enjoy reading about any car, regardless of how it is powered. I’ve spent a lot of time wrenching on all sorts of cars since I was a teenager. Not everything has to about who you voted for and I’m willing to bet that 90% of us would agree on 90% of the issues if we actually sat down and had a real discussion.
I stoped going to that other site because the commenters were hate filled, vile pedantic PIAs. I like this one better.
Same, I check in but the comments are toxic.
I actually find this to be true, I travel a lot for work and when you actually sit and talk with most people a lot of the Balkanization fades. It is a sorry state that everything is so politicized.
I also have not been to Jalopnik in more than a year. I even blocked it at the network level, because I kept going back, like a victim in an abusive relationship. I posted something slightly political here yesterday and the numbers on my bell icon are higher than they’ve ever been. Not going to look. Don’t want to know.
I’ll just stick to taillights and obscure 80’s computer hardware going forward.
OMG I had to block me from going there also as I kept getting worked up by the nasty comments.
I did the same thing blocking myself from reddit. Too many people on both sides of the political spectrum are ignorant and filled with hate.
Take away the culture war issues that are mostly used as distractions, and I think people of all backgrounds would agree on a lot of the fundamental issues.
NP or ND is all right.
I went to the other site today for the first time in close to a year, and holy crap that comment section had gotten horrible. Used to go only to check out Rob’s NPOND but I’m a Shitbox Showdown man now.
I think car buying has been political for decades and decades. Once cars (including trucks) became something that was targeted to men or women (masculine or feminine) cars became political. When your worth to your gender is judged by what you drive it is political. The terms “chick car”, secretary car, kept men from buying certain cars as they were not seen as masculine car buying became political. The awful gendered language around people who buy minivans or giant pick up trucks is political. The muscle car era moving to the malaise era with pollution controls was political. Small Japanese cars replacing large American cars was political. The environmental movement and fuel efficient cars being seen as emasculating was/is political. Yes I considered every car purchase I have ever made as somewhat political. If we, even semi consciously, think car purchase will have other people judge us then it’s a political decision.
It’s all tied to the way the vehicles are marketed to us. Madison Avenue has told us for decades that ownership of certain vehicles imbues a person with masculinity, regardless of how masculine the person is in the first place. This idea is now lodged into some people’s heads (the ones who pay attention to advertising) and is directly responsible for the SUV craze in the 90s.
The Ford commercials on right now are the worst.
Maybe I’m the odd man out, but I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality, realistic enough about my biological sex, and not tribal enough to care about the opinions of those who are not in their judgements about my completely unrelated decisions, like what car I buy.
I bought a 2025 Nissan Leaf because it was the best fit for my use case, and on a personal note I wanted a BEV because it pollutes less, and honestly it’s so much better than I expected. I don’t think I’ll buy another ICE vehicle for the rest of my life, unless it is to convert it to a BEV.
Wife and I carpool to work b/c we work near each other and it is convenient most of the time. We do that in a 2021 Kona EV that we bought used. It is a very nice car for any driving in a ~200 mile radius of home. I have taken it on a road trip and it did great.
We also have a V6 SUV (MDX) that we reserve for trips or second car uses.
Consequently we don’t really do the his and her vehicle thing. We do the big and small car thing. The small car does 95%+ of our miles since we bought it.
Going forward we’ll keep the three classics we have. We’ll always have a BEV for our smaller vehicle. It’s just a question of if we will want to replace the MDX with something electric too. Unlikely a question of value for the money b/c it would sit so much. Prob just keep the MDX indefinitely for that role b/c I don’t have to worry about a big expensive battery sitting there unused (wasted).