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
Isn’t it amazing how things that seemed old are new again? Isolationism, imperialism, narcissism, racism, misogyny, religionism, fascism, cronyism, xenophobia, sexism; what’s next, leisure suits? These things are never truly gone, just occasionally out of sight and mind (except those leisure suits, hopefully they’re gone forever). Funny how the phrase “better dead than red” is relevant again, too, though in a new context. Pretty sad when any speech is considered fighting words, when all politics are cast as identity politics. Seems the one thing we all agree upon, regardless of personal political persuasion is that the country is wildly off track. That sounds like a good place to begin meaningful dialogue.
No, I have never purchased, nor refrained from buying a car for political reasons. I will say this, though: I will never again knowingly put money in the pockets of my oppressors.
As Cheech said,” recession, repression, it’s all the same thing”.
Nope. I didn’t owe any politician any favors. I selfishly bought what I liked……Now if some politician wanted to buy me a car, I’d listen to their offer.
“Was buying (or selling) your car a political decision?”
In principle, I’ve always bought vehicles that are the most fuel efficient option (or close to it) that meets my needs and is within my budget. And I do that partly for financial reasons, partly for environmental reasons and partly for political reasons.
In the past, it was because I wanted to give less money to the oil industry that people like the corrupt Saudis profit off of.
So in the past, all of my car purchases had an element of politics… but it wasn’t a major factor.
But with recent events, politics would be a major factor. If I was in the market for a car right now, Teslas would not be an option purely for political reasons.
And any American-branded or American-made products are now automatically lower.
And what would be at the top of my list right now? Probably the Korean and Japanese products.
/rant
“This country won’t get better with one side overwhelmingly prevailing over the other.”
Bullshit.
One of the biggest reasons we’re in the mess we are now is this dogged belief in the US that there are two sides to an issue and they both have important things to offer. This is an ugly fiction that both states a false dilemma in there being two sides (there’s usually more) and they each have something to say (most are nonsense). People are not convinced by yelling at them, but telling the truth without muddying language or adding softening qualifiers isn’t yelling at people. Disagreement isn’t oppression, and being wrong isn’t a character flaw. Being unable to acknowledge a mistake, misunderstanding, or bad choice is, and doubling down on it is.
If accurately reporting a situation without weasel words makes someone uncomfortable, that’s a personal problem. It’s hard to talk about because one group in particular, the Republican Party, is doing things that are causing immediate long lasting harms to everyone who isn’t rich. It isn’t about republicans takes vs democrat takes, and continuing to simplify to that brain dead level makes us all worse off. It’s about an increasingly insular and wealthy group behaving increasingly erratically and authoritarian to everyone who isn’t rich. If we are going to simplify it to “two sides”, yeah, everybody would be a lot better off the rich sociopaths lost.
I’m burnt out on this both sides rhetoric. Politics is not a team sport, and behaving like it is, discussing it like it is, makes us all poorer.
The 24 hour news cycle is a curse. Everyone trusted Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather. News was news and not a moneymaker. We all lived in a shared reality, that has now been fractured. I now realize CNN and the first Gulf War signaled the end.
Not everyone trusted Cronkite et al.
One of the fallacies of our time is the idea that once upon a time, in the 50’s-90’s, the news was unbiased. The news has never been unbiased. Money has always influenced what gets told.
Think about all of the decisions that get made before you ever turn on the TV. Where do they send correspondents? Where do they have foreign offices? What stories are they covering? What stories make the broadcast? In what order? How much time does each story get? Which facts are deemed important and which aren’t?
This was the case in the 50’s and it is still the case today.
Just like politicians no longer feel the need to disguise that their #1 priority is getting reelected, the “news” no longer feels the need to hide their agendas.
Perhaps this is progress?
I feel this as well, I just have no answer. Society is now so fragmented that there is no agreed upon truth. I’m an engineer, a scientist and believe in basic fact. Too many no longer do.
“I’m an engineer, a scientist and believe in basic fact”
Take the science far enough though and the models break down. Then you get left with the same fragmentation and unagreed on truths of philosophy.
If you don’t believe me I think a semester’s worth of (ugh!) non-equilibrium statistical mechanics will open your eyes. Its the only class where I turned in a solution I had copied verbatim from a textbook for that exact problem on an open book, open note “rule of thumb” test and still gotten wrong because my instructor simply “didn’t like it”.
Then there is no unbiased anywhere by this metric.And I do not believe that what you say is unbiased.
Unbiased is a myth, there is only less biased. If you want an accurate read on information it must come from multiple sources and be contrasted against self-consistency
I’ve pondered when cars got political and even ideological alot. I know of an old man who in the late 50s and 60s drove swedish cars around the country working for the government. He said they always looked at him funny and made jokes about it but for him it was practical as they had small displacement engines got good fuel economy and he was getting payed per mile he also felt they were safer. We often think of 60s and 70s VWs as belonging to hippies but the bettle was an economy car at some points was the cheapest car in the market unless someone was locally importing something cheaper. There were times in the 70s when a remember a classic union quote was “you can’t eat your Toyota” . I guess foreign car brands in the us have always had some stigma that a person would think or be a certain way. I remember people looking at geo metros and other econo boxes differently but the first time I thought people felt there was an ideological shift was Prius when the owners would say I’m saving the planet because I got a new car. Of course many people bought for different reasons but people really felt there was a war and I think it was from that. People that got them that just wanted an efficient nice car hated the stigma. Then those people that created the stigma went over to model 3 and y. As far as I can tell anyway. Your car doesn’t have to say anything about you other then you think it has value and it’s getting you where you need to go. For most non car people that’s how it is. It’s sad when people run from the car they want that does the best job for them because people say it does fit your ideology or you don’t want to be labeled as some people who have that model.
I know someone who worked in Detroit in the 70’s-00’s, and she said that she got looks when she’d drive into one of the big three plans with her Japanese car (Toyotas IIRC). Cars became political when the imports started to outsell the domestics.
Yeah I have family that worked for “Ford’s” forever. They would never buy a non Ford and a foreign car was treason. I think now they use the domestic lots vs other but before it was that automaker vs others. I think it political before that though it just been getting louder. Volvos in particular were looked at as a professors car. Still now if you are looking for old Volvo parts you normally find them near University towns.
Cars as a political statement really came into its own after WWII. German and Japanese imports were very controversial.
The VW Type 1 and 2 were mascots for the hippie movement, of course.
Many “Greatest Generation” Jewish drivers refused to own a German car for obvious reasons.
And then the “Buy American” movement of the 70s-80s that blamed Jack Welch / Chicago Boys economics on foreigners.
You also have the banning of lowriders targeting chicanos, “driving while black” and, later, cars that were “girlie” or “gay” (“You don’t see many men driving the F-Series…”)
In the new millennium, hybrids, particularly the Prius, took it in the nuts as environmentalism became inexplicably linked to elitism masking as humanitarianism.
Aside from the anti-Hilter sentiment, IT’S ALL BS! At the end of the day, cars equate to freedom and equity. And, if you live in America, you can be sure a group or paranoid abusive white guys are going to start a culture war to make sure everyone knows they are top of the food chain. And that usually means a big, dumb American truck with reliability issues.
In the words of Big Willy Robinson: “Run Watcha Brung”!
“You don’t see many men driving the F-Series…”
It took me a sec to realize you didn’t mean the pickups.
Whenever I’ve advocated for keeping politics out of the car discussion on this site, I’ve been told my view is unwelcome, or at best, unpopular because everything is political. There are many Vehicles First people and to you I say, “Thanks”.
I appreciate the Editors and Writer at the Autopian. Even those that don’t hold the same views as I do. They’ve managed to create content and not be vile or demeaning to their readers when they express their views. A rare talent these days. Their cars first, politics second, most of the time, keeps me coming back.
To those who hold that one must be political in all things lest you need to go somewhere else, I’m still here. My views may sometimes be ‘off’, but they are mine and not what I’ve been told to believe by the most voracious voices or echo chamber residents.
Why do so many people react to my anti-political stance so much? I think it comes down to not conforming to some image that they know how to deal with. I could be wrong, but that’s what I’ve seen here and in the world. If I fit in Box A, Box B people have all their actions and reactions all planned. Safe, easy template moves. People in the “middle” get hit from both sides. People in the 3rd axis are “outsiders” in the High School of life.
If I had to venture an answer, would guess it’s because most are strong in their political beliefs, right or wrong.
And despite my own rants, I was totally non political till the Orange Turd told us the Chinese flu was a hoax, and goes away in a couple days. I lost too. many friends and loved ones to this “flu.” And refusing to listen to the CDC and NIH, especially about the safety of mask wearing…
Fuck him.
That was my breaking point, along with all his other deceptions, and lies.
YMMV of course.
I’ve avoided buying or recommending friends buy GM products in part because I’ve come to associate them with people I don’t care for. It’s more than likely those people do not share my political views, so in a roundabout way, yes.
I had a whole write up regarding half my family and GM and this is basically it in a nutshell.
I drive a Chevrolet Bolt and yes, it mattered to me that it was a compact practical city EV built in Orion Township, Michigan by UAW members. Do I expect my one car to sway the trend towards big expensive crossovers built with cheap labor elsewhere? No. But it’s more than nothing, and it’s something I can do.
Well he’s not quite as bad as Henry Ford, who was beloved by both Stalin and Hitler and even published an antisemitic newspaper and books distributed at Ford dealerships. So maybe Musk isn’t quite as bad as Ford, although he is obviously a big believer in a reversion to Fordism.
Interestingly enough both Ford and Musk followed a strategy of making the same car for an extended period of time and lowering the prices as they lower the cost of production.
But if you don’t want to buy a Tesla, what are you going to buy? A BMW?
The Quandt family that owns most of BMW were Nazis , and Joseph Goebbels was Harald Quandt‘a stepfather. Use of slave labor and an on site execution facility at a Quandt battery factory is well documented.
In fairness to BMW, the Quandts didn’t buy BMW until 1960.
Details here
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/breaking-the-silence-bmw-s-quandt-family-to-investigate-wealth-amassed-in-third-reich-a-511193.html
I think everybody’s aware of Mercedes, and to a lesser extent Volkswagen and the Porsches’ history , but I own an undrivable example of each.
Too bad, I rather like the Tesla cars, and until covid ate Musk’s brain I would have considered buying one.
Every global conglomerate has skeletons in it’s closet. Let’s be honest, there is only one way to get there. Tesla’s is just on full display to anyone interested, like a flasher.
Elon might have a photo of Hitler in his office, but Hitler had a photo of Henry Ford in his office..
“But if you don’t want to buy a Tesla, what are you going to buy? A BMW?”
A Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda.. hell, you can even get a Nissan…
80 years ago is not today.
I have sort of personal historical reasons to not buy German, but it’s not really any ind of moral dilemma as I can’t afford the ones that appeal to me (and I’d buy something else at those 7-figure prices). If I was interested in a Tesla, though, they’d be off the table. Closest I came previously was not wanting a Camaro because of the mullet association, but if I really liked them, I still would have had one in spite of it. Tesla could build one of my designs and I wouldn’t buy one.
I owned a Camaro and I resemble that remark.
Excellently written intro. Appreciate it.
I have also been of the opinion that it is impossible to shout someone into agreeing with you. The more dystopian things get, though, the more I question whether it is actually worthwhile to try and convince these idiots that science is real, that facts aren’t negotiable, and that we are on an absolutely disastrous trajectory. Because it seems impossible to do. Leading a horse to water, and all that.
My time might be better spent doing anything else than trying to get people to actually challenge their own preconceptions. Maybe I just kick back and let them stick their hands on the hot stove.
The sad thing is that this stuff comes up in regular conversation and most times we have common ground. Our modern world is dividing us, not bringing us together.
I’m an engineer with a hard science background, I also had enough credits for a minor in Anthropology.
tribal politics. everyone is doing it. “I wouldn’t have voted for Trump, but I had no choice” Because tribal politics
I’ve never bought any vehicle with any consideration of politics. HOWEVER…my decision to put down a deposit on a new Scout as opposed to buying a certain other electric truck on the market…nope never mind. I hated the silly Cybertruck the first time I saw it. Has nothing to do with politics.
I learned an interesting fact about crabs from today’s TMD.
If you like that, check out carcinization!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
My husband is black and from coastal Virginia. I’ve been hearing this for over 20 years as truth and parable.
My current car was only a political purchase insofar as 90’s market regulations pushed me away from other cars I might have gone for instead.
I don’t know when it was introduced or if it’s still active, but at the time of my 1998 Boxster’s manufacture, Japan had rules that made registration and inspections prohibitively expensive as a car reached 10 years of age, and as a result, cars weren’t expected to outlast that. This resulted in some of my favorite cars like the Celica Supra, MX-5, MR2, 280ZX and the like having abysmal rust protection. There was no real rust counter-measure other than paint on any of them, and I needed a fun car I could drive year-round in salty Michigan.
That left, in the pool of cars whose driving dynamics would satisfy me, whose bodies had a chance of surviving Winter driving, and whose prices I could afford, the Z3 and 986. I was just short of affording a BRZ, but the insurance premiums for those are crazy, and as I live in a no-fault state, the insurance premium is higher than the monthly loan payment. Better rust protection and dynamics led me to the 986, but that was the tie-breaker. The elimination round was, arguably, all political.
In short, 90s Japanese market stimulation laws and no-fault insurance eliminated the vast majority of the cars I was considering, and preference only really settled the final choice.
“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,”
No, it really isn’t. As proof, we are here, and not there.
And no, neither my last vehicle purchase or sale was politically motivated in any way. Keep in mind (and this bears repeating) that the people hogging the megaphone shrieking endlessly about politics is actually a very noisy minority, and most folks would prefer to ignore it and hope it would go away so that we can get on with (the already difficult enough task of) living our lives.
No, it really isn’t. As proof, we are here, and not there.
exactly so
TTAC was that. I left there long ago. A popular AM radio DJ was doing a censorship back in the early 2000s. The whole morning team claimed it wasn’t censorship that a particular band wasn’t allowed on the station anymore. “If you don’t like it don’t tune in”. Done. He moved to a local sports station and I still don’t.
Buying anything has always been political when the winds blow the same way, from tea, japanese car imports to Teslas today. It just feels different now because everything we do in the 2020’s now is maximized and amplified. It will stay that way so I am not worrying about that too much. Plenty cars to choose from that aren’t political.
I do worry about thrashing a truly innovative American company for political reasons. That is own foot-blowing with a bazooka, and it will definitely have repercussions. Already does as Chinese companies skate ahead on their smooth and glassy politics.
Sadly, Tesla hasn’t been a viable option for me basically ever thanks to their garbage interior design, so I can’t very well boycott something I wasn’t going to buy in the first place. I will continue not buying Teslas, but I can’t claim it’s a political statement.
I suppose my Prius was a bit of a political statement. I believe in conservation of natural resources, and as a single person who is often transporting nothing more than myself and my bike it felt wasteful to always drive my truck (which I do still need for quite a few things). The fact that reducing waste is considered a political statement these days is sad, but here we are.
We own a Tesla because I always wanted to try an EV and it made sense given the support structure and Supercharger network. The first one was great, and when we hit 75k miles we considered a second one. That was earlier last year and they offered low interest and the EV tax credit. We traded the old one in, got a new one, and we went on our merry way. Now, however, I wouldn’t do that again. I don’t like the political stigma, and I don’t want to support Musk. Still, I own the car and it’s not like I’m going to take a financial bath on it for political reasons so we’ll keep using it, but when it’s time, it won’t be replaced with another one.
There may have been a tiny subconscious element to moving up a potential purchase in case things get dicey, since I did do it right before the election, but really the seed was already planted and it didn’t have any actual bearing. I had been toying with the idea of a newer car and not wanting to throw money at maintenance/repairs. Just the timing and numbers made sense in the moment and I did it because I wanted to.
There’s not many things I buy or places I frequent that I think a boycott or making a switch is making an impact on the bottom line but also makes it not hard to do.
I figure I want as much cash and as little debt as possible right now. We’ll drive what we have a little longer. Don’t want to be surprised with a layoff while making a bunch of payments.
Similar thought. I was in a position that I could take advantage of a solid trade value and pay off the rest. So I still have no car payment, reset the clock on some of the maintenance items, and I’m CPO warrantied for the next few years which gives me a cushion against anything else unexpected popping up. It was a 7 year old VW that had been reliable but was not aging as gracefully as I would’ve liked, so was a bit bearish on riding it out.
Same. Doing a few maintenance items this weekend to keep our two rides rolling for the long term. Prob have a sit down with our two offspring (college age) and remind them that there is some economic uncertainty on the horizon. Be sure to still some money back and make sure they have their stuff in order.
I wanted a van. I bought a van. Looking back, it was likely one of the lease political purchases I could make. And I suppose any future purchase would also be apolitical, as I probably wouldn’t buy a Tesla even if the CEO wasn’t an absolute clown.
I think we’re seeing that people desperately do not want to have to consider general morality when purchasing transportation.
Facts on one side are not equivalent to lies on the other and do not deserve equal consideration.
As a gay parent of 3 kids, 2 dogs, 1 turtle, solar panels, high efficiency furnace, EV Driver, was my car choice political? No, I just went with what made sense to my wallet (Ex GM employee that gets the discounts). I still own ICE vehicles for fun.
The same reason why I have an electric mower = save some money. But that does not mean I ignore what happens in politics since it affects my rights, choices and my wallet.
Wait, you gave birth to solar panels AND a furnace?
No judgment, just sounds painful.
My next mower and snow blower will be battery electric not to save money but I am just tired of dealing with small gas motors.
Went with a gas mower for my property for the same reasons. I use 3 gallons or so a season but would be stuck changing/charging batteries mid session. Most everything else is corded or cordless electric, including the snow blower.
I went with an electric mower because I didn’t go through very much gas per year and didn’t like the smell in my garage. Don’t get me started on how well my electric mower has held up. Performance yeah. Reliability…..it’s no Honda gas mower.
This! Just got a gas one today. It was taking my former yard guy 3 hours to cut my 1/4 acre yard. And he had like 6 batteries needed to do it. No exaggeration at all.
We are both almost 70 and he spent more time swapping batteries than actually cutting.
Just cut the grass, and the exercise felt good.
The only downside is the self propelled thing is faster than I can walk.
Plus I didn’t want him to drop dead in my yard from 105 temps.
An electric mower lets me mow when the kids and/or wife are napping! I did it 100% for the quiet operation.
This is a negative for me. The electric mower is so quiet my wife can talk to me while I’m mowing. I love my wife, but mowing is me time!
electric mower = save some money
Its also nice to never have to run to the gas station just to fill up a can.
I was alive for the Hummer, which was the universally agreed upon symbol of someone who loved george w bush and wanted people to know that. I’m sure there were political statement cars before that, but I can’t think of any. Obviously Japanese cars were a hot button issue, but I’d be surprised if anyone bought them specifically to communicate to other people that they were pro-free trade. Lil Red Express is the only potential car to come to mind, but I have no idea what the reaction at the time was. Doesn’t seem like there would be enough of them on the road to raise the ire of environmentalists.
I was also alive for the Hummer, and I don’t recall it ever being associated with Bush specifically, just the symbol of unnecessary excess by someone who might be a douchebag. I suppose the difference today is that the Hummer wasn’t built by Bush’s right hand man. Also, Clinton made it clear soon afterwards that hummers were ok.
Yeah the Hummer had/has a much more cross-racial appeal than I remember Bush personally having.
That’s an understatement, lol.
I saw an H2 SUT out and about yesterday, and it still stood out as being big and ostentatious, even though all the more modern trucks around it were just as big and ostentatious.
Your timeline is a little off. Clinton made hummers okay first. Bush Jr. made the cars look like symbols of excess consumption.
I thought that sounded weird. I confused W Bush with H W Bush.
I guess the H2 was the bush years vehicle, and my perspective might have been off being in a pretty liberal town, where it felt like the prius and the h2 was in some existential brand battle.
The Hummer was a symbol of USA military in the mideast
Not the ones built by GM
Most consumer buyer probably didn’t parse that out.
Side note, but the H2 was also a great candidate for vinyl wraps because it got attention and had a big, slabby side. It was a pretty good advertising platform for small businesses…until it suddenly wasn’t. So many of those companies wanted nothing to do with politics (or even environmentalism, since sitting parked emits no CO2). But they had it thrust upon them.
If you were alive for the Hummer, you were alive for the Volt, which was even more of a political football when it released.
TIL that anybody else knew or cared about the Volt when it was released 🙂
(raises hand)
All kinds of non-car people around me became “experts” in cars at that time, thanks to certain news organizations spreading FUD about the Volt.
There was a modest outcry about using “government bailout money” on “liberal eco-junk” like the Volt. It kind of got lost in the general backlash against Obama/Democrats in that timeframe but it was real.
I always thought the issue with the Volt was that the appearance of the production version was far from the original concept/prototype that resembled a Camaro. People waited with bated breath for a hybrid muscle car and were presented with a very clever American Prius instead.
As far as the article thumbnail is concerned I find it to be highly ironic. A Tesla Cybertruck crushing a GM EV1, you know, the electric car that GM chose to crush over letting the lessees buy their EV1s when GM wasn’t going to make any more of them.
Before Tesla actually started mass producing BEVs there were a lot of people who refused to buy a GM EV because of what they did to the EV1, this was shown in Revenge of The Electric Car, the sequel to Who Killed The Electric Car.
Now It’s Tesla for a lot of people, even though they never forced their customers to give up their BEVs for crushing, but because of Elon being the figurehead of it.
Personally I’m unlikely to ever buy a Tesla because I hate things like electric door handles, electric steering column adjustment, electric seat adjustment, etc. However mobile service, quick turnaround for “custom orders”, mobile service, etc. is appealing.
I just got my Nissan Leaf S for $21,500 brand new, and I couldn’t be happier with it. I just hope by 2027-ish there’s a BEV with NACS that I want to buy.
Nope.