Uber has partnered with Google’s Waymo to facilitate robotaxi rides around Austin in advance of the city’s annual SXSW Festival. This development, occurring in Tesla’s own backyard amid a slowdown in sales, is quite interesting to me. Tesla has long enjoyed a huge first-mover advantage and an enormous amount of goodwill. First-mover advantages usually fade over time. Goodwill, in my experience, can disappear a lot faster.
I don’t love starting The Morning Dump with a question, but this is an important one and I don’t have a definitive answer to. It’s not that I think the market for Teslas will suddenly evaporate. The company could lose a huge percentage of its sales and still be the most popular electric car company in many markets. I’m just curious about how much of the company’s value is the hype and how much that hype is dependent on a never-ending string of good news and Musk pronouncements. Tesla, historically, gets a way higher valuation than other car companies and it’s not just because of the underlying business fundamentals.
Corvette is in a different situation. I don’t think esteem for the brand has lessened, but its original owners are aging out of the brand a little bit. What’s Corvette’s plan to keep itself fresh? Stellantis is a brand whose perceptions have definitely changed, and its big move is to become more American. That seems wise to me.
Oh, yeah, we’re in day two of tariffs. I don’t know how long they’ll last and there are some hints out there that, no matter what was said last night, the country might move past them quickly. Or at least modify them. Will this matter? I think the uncertainty is worse than any tariff right now.
The One Lever Tesla Can’t Pull Is The One It Might Need Most
Tesla CEO Elon Musk typically does some of his best work when his back is against the wall. I’m old enough to remember when it seemed like Tesla was going to have trouble delivering the company’s first production roadsters to customers and Musk had to rally customers, suppliers, and employees to get the product out the door.
It was hard then not to cheer for Musk. If you just started paying attention to the company and its leader, this enthusiasm for Musk might seem odd. At the time he was rich, but he wasn’t the richest man in the world. He was active on social media, but he didn’t own a platform. His politics were vague.
After years of hearing that American car companies were slow, old-fashioned, and unable to meet the demands of a new world, it was encouraging to see a company from the USA fundamentally alter the car industry forever.
Musk did have his own eccentricities. I remember covering his reaction to a questionable test from Top Gear and then a poorly planned road test someone at The New York Times did in a Model S. Musk’s response then was to refuse to budge an inch, threaten to sue, and otherwise get really mad. I remember writing at the time that I thought Elon Musk was turning a bit paranoid and Nixon-like.
None of this harmed Musk in the long run, as his was the only company in the world making truly great electric cars, and he benefited, both in esteem and in personal wealth, from getting there first. People were proud to be not just Tesla owners, but also Tesla shareholders. Even before Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, he generated an almost cult-like adoration from a certain kind of extremely-online dude.
There are not enough of those online dudes to support a car company. Tesla’s goals have a lot more to do with driverless cars and other technology than they do with just selling a cars, so maybe that’s not a big deal, but Tesla still needs people to believe in the Tesla experiment or the high stock valuations that make him the richest man on the planet aren’t sustainable.
What if only the small segment of true believers are still on board? How long would it take to find out?
It’s hard to say if Tesla’s drop in sales in the United States, and especially in places like California, are explicitly because people take issue with any of the dozens of things that Elon Musk has done to make them upset. I don’t feel like I need to list them specifically because you’re getting your news from a blog so I assume you have the Internet, but just to pick the most recent thing: Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is firing a bunch of people, and outlets across the country are pointing out that means he’s firing a bunch of disabled veterans. You might believe there’s a good reason for that, and perhaps there is, but it doesn’t feel good. Right? It’s hard to put that on a bumper sticker.
In Europe, where EV sales are exploding and Tesla sales are cratering, I think it’s much easier to draw a line between Musk’s politics and the sales drop. The support for the far right is growing in Europe, but it still represents less than a third of the population in the largest car markets, and talking to friends and relatives in Europe, it’s clear that those not associated with the far right absolutely despise the far right.
So what about China? Things can go poorly in Europe and the United States, but a big year in China could cover for a lot of it. Unfortunately for Tesla, things aren’t going well in China. In the first two months of the year, the brand saw a 30% decrease in sales from 132k cars to about 94K. Is this just the factory closing and the usual Chinese New Year Holiday as some suggest?
Not once did they mention the production transition from the old Model Y to the new Model Y, which temporarily results in fewer cars to sell. pic.twitter.com/2VAcszaQjG
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) March 4, 2025
It’s certainly part of it, but China celebrated Chinese New Year in 2024 as well (obviously). Plus, other automakers in China are doing just fine, and according to CNEVPost, NEV sales in the country are way up this year:
Retail sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China continued to see a sequential decline in February, though the rate of decline narrowed significantly.
In February, retail sales of passenger NEVs in China totaled 720,000 units, up 85 percent year-on-year, but down 3 percent from January, according to preliminary data released today by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
Chinese New Year always throws a kink in sales, but this year the kink wasn’t as pronounced as in the past. Granted, I don’t think people in China are anti-Tesla in any specific way, merely that the competition there is truly amazing and the company can only cut prices/hand out insurance deals for so long before its margins get so bad that it can’t uphold its high valuation.
Tesla says robotaxis are coming. Eventually. It’ll have to get approval in California to do it there and my guess is that California might not go out of its way to help, given that the company moved its HQ to Texas.
And what of Texas? Well, Uber and Waymo just linked up to start offering rides there as CNBC reports:
Austin is the first market in which Uber will manage and dispatch a fleet of Waymo vehicles. Riders in Phoenix can book Waymo rides through the Uber app, but the ride-sharing company does not manage the Waymo fleet in that market. The two companies’ partnership will expand to Atlanta later this year, where Waymo employees have already begun taking fully autonomous trips across the city, the company said Tuesday.
Uber sold off its autonomous vehicle, or AV, unit in 2020 after a string of earlier safety incidents including one fatality. The two companies have not disclosed how they split revenue for Waymo rides booked through the Uber app.
“With Waymo’s technology and Uber’s proven platform, we’re excited to introduce our customers to a future of transportation that is increasingly electric and autonomous,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement.
Now it’s Tesla that has ceded the first-mover advantage. It’s entirely possible that Tesla’s technology is way better than Google’s, that the cars will be nicer, and Elon Musk will come up with some genius marketing scheme to get people to buy the cars. Perhaps the idea of owning a car that you can allow to go do cab rides while you sleep is a great idea that people will love.
But here’s the thing that would scare me if I’m a Tesla investor: What if they don’t? What if Tesla is now toxic to enough people in big cities that you can’t get people to buy and/or use the cars? Then what’s the value of the company? People are already selling their Teslas in small numbers because they’re tired of being judged by their neighbors. There’s blood in the water.
Musk may not even be the most conservative or Trump-supporting CEO in the car world, but he’s made his brand so explicitly political that it’s now impossible to separate the two. How is Musk going to overcome that?
As I wrote almost exactly 12 years ago:
Tesla, in my opinion, has benefited from more goodwill and trust than almost any other automaker in the last decade. If that stops it’s not going to be the media’s fault, it’s going to be Musk’s.
There will always be a market for Teslas. It would be silly to suggest otherwise. The market has to be huge, though, for Tesla to be valued the way Tesla is. If sales fall to a low enough point, the company isn’t a unicorn, it’s just a horse. Horses are cool, too, but they aren’t as valuable as unicorns.
What Happens When Corvette Owners Are Too Old For Their Corvettes?
Oh, another question, fun. As was pointed out in our Discord, the short answer is: They get sold in an estate sale to some kid in their 20s. There’s a lot of conversation around the industry about the future of Corvette and this story in the Detroit Free Press addresses it pretty head on:
Corvette enthusiasts such as Detroit resident Mahlon Cooks, who retired from a Wayne County job after 30 years, may not be in the market much longer.
Cooks’ most recent purchase, an eighth-generation Corvette, may be his last, he told the Free Press.
“Heck, I’m 70 years old,” he said. “The car is about 4 inches off the ground.”
I think that’s reasonable, although the percentage of Corvette owners above 55 has dropped from 62% to 59% since 2019. This might both be a reflection of the introduction of a mid-engined Vette and also, maybe, some owners aging out of the brand.
These questions are also coming up because three of the executives closely associated with the brand have left the company. One retired by choice, and two seem to have been retired by GM. This has bothered some of the faithful, especially as it comes right as the company is about to roll out the 2025 Corvette ZR1.
I’m less bothered, to be honest. If Corvette is to remain America’s premiere performance brand, it’s going to have to change, which usually means an injection of new blood. This doesn’t mean that Corvette loses the core of what Corvette is. I’m pretty sure that GM President Mark Reuss is going to let that happen any time soon (he may eventually move on to head up the company’s F1 program, but he’s there now).
The youngest among us, Griffin, proudly drives a C6 Corvette. There’s still enthusiasm out there and it’ll just take a fresh look to make sure that Griffin wants to buy a new Corvette when he can afford one.
Stellantis To Become A Little More American
The Stellantis of Carlos Tavares, not pictured, was a very European company. People I knew involved with the automaker complained that the Tavares version of the company was a little too French. That’s no longer going to be the case as the Stellantis board moves to put two Americans onto its largely European board of directors.
Stellantis NV on Monday nominated two Americans, Alice Schroeder and Daniel Ramot, to join its board that currently includes a large membership of European business leaders.
The transatlantic automaker also proposed reelecting five other directors, as the terms of seven members of the 11-seat board come to an end.
The directors will serve two-year terms if approved at an April 15 shareholders meeting in Amsterdam.
Schroeder is a former Morgan Stanley managing director who sits on several boards, including HSBC North America, and was once Warren Buffett’s biographer. Ramot is an Israeli-American entrepreneur and scientist who leads Via — a public transportation and software company that has ties to Stellantis Chairman John Elkann and his family’s investment company, Exor NV.
This is almost certainly a big improvement for the board as America, last time I checked, is still the company’s most important market.
The Uncertainty Is Worse Than Any Tariff
President Trump seemed to double down on his tariffs in his speech last night, which seem mostly bad for the industry. He did add the idea of being able to deduct the interest from car loans, which the car industry would probably like to see happen, although it’s not a huge amount of money unless you’re buying a super expensive car. Probably not enough to push anyone above the standard deduction.
How long will the tariffs last? It’s anyone’s guess, though there are some signs that maybe cars will be exempted in some way according to Reuters:
President Donald Trump’s administration is considering granting relief from his 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports to products that comply with the trade pact he negotiated with the two U.S. neighbors during his first term, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday.
Two sources familiar with discussions between the Trump administration and Canadian and Mexican officials said the talks are aimed at exemptions for companies that comply with the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rules of origin, largely – but not exclusively – aimed at automakers.
That’s great if you’re a carmaker, but the whiplash from being told you’re going to have to build EVs to being told you shouldn’t build EVs is a lot. And then add on top of it that President Trump laid out the rules for building cars in the 2020 USMCA agreement only to toss them immediately upon being reelected.
How do you plan for that? Here’s a bit from Cox Auto’s Senior Economist Charlie Chesbrough that I think is key:
“Through much of 2024, many of the key metrics for the auto industry were returning to long-established norms. New-vehicle inventory had mostly recovered from the pandemic shortages; sales volumes and incentives were both increasing, as expected. And while new-vehicle prices are elevated compared to 2019, new vehicle price inflation was relatively tame in 2024, with transaction prices in January 2025 below levels measured in January 2023. But here we go again. Just as the industry seemed to be finding stable ground, new obstacles are thrown in place. How long higher tariffs are held in place is the industry’s big question right now. Higher prices and border disruptions could result in lower volume. Our forecast of 16.3 million new-vehicle sales in 2025, at least at this moment, is now in question.”
Building cars is hard, but it didn’t used to be this hard.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Here’s French cover artists Nouvelle Vague doing their version of Echo And The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” just so people don’t think we’re anti-French around here.
The Big Question
Would you consider buying a Corvette?
Photo: Waymo
I am excited to see what happens to his muskiness when his value tanks below a certain level. Given his position of…advisor (eye roll)…it will no doubt be very exciting one way or the other. 100% Tesla import tariffs in Canada could be coming very soon…that could be interesting.
Nothing is going to happen, he’s that rich.
Maybe not as Rich as you, Pat. 🙂
The Corvette is basically the car equivalent of Harley Davidson. The cohorts that found their product appealing is aging out (or dying off) and the younger generations just don’t want what the same things.
The current Vette is fantastic for what it is, but kneecapped by the price of entry.
If they come out with something smaller that’s more affordable and fun (think Miata or MR2) they’ll have a chance, but the value proposition has to shift much farther towards the pony car side of the spectrum than the supercar side. Otherwise they’re facing the same issue as HD – the market is simply evaporating.
cremating, not evaporating
I won’t argue a degree of overlap in the HD/Corvette Venn diagram, but one thing that can be said is once we got out of the malaise, the Corvette regained performance status, while HD just continued “turning gasoline into noise without the benefit of horsepower”.
I already have three so I’d probably move on to something else when it’s time for another fun car. Porsche has always caught my eye but I probably want something EV and the Taycan doesn’t really tickle my fancy.
I saw a running ’89 C4 for $1600 the other day that I almost bought without telling my wife. Then I did a quick count of our cars and decided one more would completely fill two hands’ worth of digits excluding motorcycles.
So, yes, I would buy a corvette. But I need to thin the herd. I just have trouble getting rid of a perfectly functional Vibe or my ’86 4Runner.
Smart man. That’s how you stay married lol
Meh, probably not. I think that your perception of cars is often almost indelibly tied to when you grew up and for Generation X “Corvette” means “Guy with a perm who’s definitely down to hook up with the neighbor’s wife”.
Some of us just have curly hair.
Okay but I guarantee you that dude is a blast to party with and won’t even blink if you ask him to pass the aux so you can play Ratt
I like Corvettes and I’m bald. The neighbor’s wife is kind of hot though.
The grass is always greener, my friend. Or, in some cases, a blank canvas.
To this Gen Xer it means grandpa driving so slow he gets passed by a Prius.
That’s Perm Guy 40 years later.
I really find that Tesla DudeBro argument of “but they had a production transition, so any negative press is a LIE” to be the most toothless argument imaginable. Sure, there may have been a *slight* hiccup in production of a *single* model. But if that alone is enough to result in a double digit percentage drop in sales, that only has one of two things to say about Tesla operationally:
1 is that they are so piss poor at forecasting, production, and management that basic car company things like updated models is enough to throw sales into a tailspin.
2 is that if 1 is in fact true, their $850B (and ever falling) Market Cap is even more egregiously overinflated than previously expected.
A third bonus argument is that if you really need to make such reaches to apologize for a car companies sales, you know deep down inside that the company is going downhill quickly, but you’ve clearly put your entire retirement account in Elon companies, and aren’t comfortable with the nosedive it’s taking.
I don’t buy the idea that this is due to the Model Y refresh but the Model Y is about 2/3 rds of Tesla total sales.
I don’t buy a word of it either, but this is the words of a Tesla diehard that has zero actual affiliation with the company, so naturally some people consider his opinions valid for some bizarre reason. I do think there’s something to be said about a lot of investors being in denial about the cause for sales drops, it’s far easier to blame it on something that has passed than something that is still looming large and that will be far more difficult to fix. Musk to Tesla shareholders seems to be an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Maybe it’s my stage of life, but I can make little use of a 2-door, 2-seat, vehicle that has no storage.
I see much more appeal out of a hot hatch / hot wagon – one where I can stuff the kids, dog, and some camping gear on the weekend, do a Home Depot run, tow the motorcycle to the track, and still have a blast when it’s just me in the car.
A hot wagon is the dream.
I’ve kinda done that with my ’14 Sportwagen TDI. A Stage 2 tune got me up to around 165hp and 310ft/lbs of torque. It’s not a rocket ship but feels a lot like my old GTI. A stiffer rear sway bar, some sport shocks and springs makes it handle pretty well. Also looks a little more sporty, with around a 1.5 inch drop on that suspension setup. Red paint and gunmetal grey wheels definitely helps with the “sporty” aesthetic. It’s a lot of fun to drive, it’s a manual, and I still get great fuel economy. It will likely be my other “forever car” (alongside my 1972 Super Beetle).
That does sound pretty awesome. I hope to eventually have enough space to have a fun car in addition to my practical/reliable daily driver, and this sounds like the sort of setup that would be a lot of fun without being impractical.
Yep, that’s what I was going for! I didn’t want to be making an excessive amount of mods that could impact reliability, comfort, or practicality, so I’ve tried to find a balance. It’s been pretty good to me so far, just one “only in a VW” problem so far. I’ve hauled all sorts of crap with it too, it’s been great for home improvement and gardening projects.
Having kids makes me want a 2 seater. So the wife and I can have a nice peaceful drive. But if I was going to make that purchase it would be a late 90’s SL500 all the way.
You and I sound like we could be friends. I too have kids, love weekend camping trips, and throw a motorcycle on the hitch carrier for me time.
Besties?
No to buying a Corvette, unless it was a 1960. If GM wants to hang on to its traditional Corvette clientele then we’d better see a Corvette SUV soon. I don’t want it to happen, but it will.
Perhaps the largest indicator of Elon Musk fatigue is that Texas has temporarily suspended plans to rename the state Texlas.
Tesla seems to be facing two major issues now. One is Musk himself, I won’t go into details because we all know what he’s up to. The other is their aging fleet. I don’t know how anyone could really believe that Tesla could sell (their projection) 250k Cybertrucks a year. Even without Musk’s polarizing politics, I can’t see a path to them ever selling that many in a year. So, all hopes of that as a volume model are gone. It doesn’t help that the Cybertruck is well known for being Musk’s own idea and creation, further intertwining the truck with Musk himself.
Yeah, they’re refreshing the Model 3 and Y, maybe the X and S soon too. But that’s all it is–a mid cycle refresh. I don’t think that’s enough. The OEMs are catching up, and competition is especially fierce in China. In Europe and North America his politics seem to be causing a lot of the sales decline. But China isn’t as concerned about his meddling in US politics, and sales are still down there. Tesla’s aren’t the latest and greatest any more, and instead of focusing on new models with mass appeal they focused on the Cybertruck.
The problem is, once they lose ground to the competition–for whatever reason–its going to be hard to “put the toothpaste back in the tube,” especially with no new models to roll out. I don’t think they’re going to go out of business or anything, but their dominance of the EV market is shrinking and will continue to do so without new models and with Musk running the show.
I don’t know how anyone could really believe that Tesla could sell (their projection) 250k Cybertrucks a year.
Seriously, If Toyota and Nissan couldn’t break into the domestic truck market in those numbers with their conventional offerings, what made Tesla think it could?
Whatever it was, it was probably snorted.
Does one snort ketamine?
“I don’t know how anyone could really believe that Tesla could sell (their projection) 250k Cybertrucks a year.”
At one time, I could believe it… but that was on the assumption that they put them on sale at the prices they initially announced.
But since they didn’t do that AND Musk went nuts and caused a political backlash against the company, I too don’t see 250k/year of Cybertrucks sold ever happening. Hell… I don’t even see half of that sales figure happening anymore.
250k was possible, but always extremely unlikely.
I love the heck out of Corvette’s looks, across several generations.
But since I live within reasonable driving distance of the assembly plant and the Corvette Museum, I’ve had the opportunity to sit in one several times.
I’m 6’2″ and broad shouldered, and they’re cramped. I wouldn’t want to daily drive one, and I’m not buying a car I can’t daily.
I just in the last year or so hit the point where I could reasonably obtain a $70k+ car, and Corvette didn’t even make the list when I started shopping.
I would absolutely consider an older Corvette, but there lies the problem for GM. Regardless of what a bargain it is, $70k + is a crap ton of money to spend on a fun car, and most younger people simply don’t have it to spare and likely won’t for the foreseeable future. I don’t know what GM will do when the boomers are gone and the only people left with money are ones for whom the Corvette nameplate means much less.
Corvettes have been for old guys for decades though.
My parents generation wasn’t buying them in their 30s either.
I suspect Gen X and Millennials will age into Corvette desirability like Boomers did. The C8 is a big step in this direction.
Who is this Gen X you speak of? Oh wait, that’s me. Perpetually forgotten.
We aren’t forgotten, we prefer it that way.
Just to add some more context to this, a 1980 Corvette cost $14,000 when the median household income was about $21,000 (67% of median income)
A 2023 Corvette costs $63,000 and the median income is about $80,000 (78%).
So it’s higher, but not extremely so, and that’s leaving out the fact that you’re getting a 500 hp mid-engine supercar instead of a 190 hp smog-choked C3.
And, arguably, with longer-lived vehicles and financing that’s getting longer, that additional percentage of income might be more than offset. On the other hand, other costs (such as housing) are also taking higher percentages of income, so it is really hard to make a one-for-one analysis.
I get what you’re saying, but Boomers are really the last generation who grew up with American cars being genuinely some of the best in the world (if even in some categories). Gen X and Millennials have come of age in an era where the Europeans and Japanese were dominant, and the domestics were kind of a joke.
I hope I’m wrong because I want Corvettes to be around for many years, but I don’t have confidence that that name is going to hold much sway for kids who had posters of Porsche 930s and R34 Skylines in their bedrooms.
Well you may be right, but 911s and GTRs are even more unattainable than Corvettes, and hopefully people have moved beyond perceptions set 40 years ago because I also want to see the Vette continue for many more years.
No we won’t. We grew up with very different aspirations.
The C8 is a truly magnificent car, but it’s not affordable for the large number of people in their 40s and 50s that are still supporting their kids, worrying about their tiny retirement savings and / or still working 60 hours a week. Everything before the C8 has either a huge ‘old man with shades and a Rolex’ stigma, or is just a crappy old muscle car.
This right here, I can’t fathom spending half the cost of a Corvette on a car, plus I have a family to haul around. There is no reality in which I’m ever in the market for a fun car that costs more than 10K
No one is expecting the majority of people in their 40s and 50s to buy sports cars, but the question is really, out of the millions of those people will Chevy continue to be able to sell 40-50,000 Corvettes a year?
I suspect the answer is yes.
I almost bought a clean, low-mile C4 for 5k in 2020. Only almost, because I couldn’t get to the bank fast enough and the guy was moving. Timing is nearly everything.
Now? Probably not. I’ll likely stick with Euros due to the performance/ practicality and the enjoyment of self inflicted pain.
Corvettes haven’t ever really appealed to me. I appreciate them, respect them, but I don’t desire them. If I were actually going to spend $80K+ on a car, I would probably buy a couple year old GTR.
“Musk may not even be the most conservative or Trump-supporting CEO in the car world…”
Oh?
Did some other CEO write a US Presidential Candidate a check for $260 Million?
Are there other CEO’s hanging around the Oval Office, taking over multiple government agencies, firing government employees, eliminating government oversight for his own companies and issuing government contracts to themselves?
Actions speak louder than words.
Speaking of actions vs words: Tesla has been a meme stock almost since it’s inception – being manipulated by it’s CEO with demonstrably false statements and overpromises. Regardless of the CEO’s extra-curricular activities – the share value of Tesla has needed a reset for many, many years.
And no – although I’ve briefly driven a few (C3, C4, C5) – I haven’t really been interested in owning any Corvette.
I’m more of a Thunderbird guy.
Respectfully, everything you cite can be attributed to many things beyond just being conservative. Those could just as easily be motivated by profit (whats 260 Million if you are confident it will buy you another Billion?), power lust, sheer arrogance, etc. I think Musk is a performer. I don’t actually think most of us have any idea what he actually believes politically.
Does it actually make a difference when the results are the same?
Nope, just like when the armed drones come knocking on our doors in a few months asking what our political affiliation is, and we say it’s “Republican”, it will only be that so that we can maybe not go to jail.
It does not make a difference when the results are the same.
I would argue that writing a check for $260 Million is fairly supportive….
…as he probably could have potentially gotten similar, yet more subtle results by writing the check to the Lady.
The $260M is notable because of its overall size, but not really when compared to his net worth. I would not be surprised to find out a different auto CEO gave a larger percentage of their net worth to the campaign but .1% isn’t newsworthy when it’s $10,000.
The real problem here is that Trump is such a buffoon he could be bought for such an insignificant amount, because he’s too stupid to grasp scale.
Then why didn’t he?
The reality is that Trump is a uniquely corrupt absolute piece of crap human being, and the GOP is a party of cowards that will destroy itself before calling him out.
I’m not trying to pick a fight here (lol), but calling the Republicans cowards when the Democrats were cosplaying a silent auction of protest last night with those dumb signs, is laughable.
That was a disgraceful showing. Not to mention, sticking to their seats when two genuinely heartfelt actions were shown to those kids.
That was done on purpose to show the disdain that the D party has towards the “common” American, and the D’s went all hook, line and sinker. They should all be embarrassed for their hypocrisy.
Lady Chesterfield? Oops, wrong Trump hanger on.
The problem with Corvette is that it is expensive enough that young people starting their careers(23-30 years old) can’t afford one, impractical enough that people with kids it won’t work for them, and low enough that old timers can’t fit in one. If you have money early or during kids I would imagine they are looking at something European.
911 is the answer.
I agree with what you’re saying, but those problems are the same for any equivalent sports car.
I would love a C4 Grand Sport or a C6 ZR1, but both are way out of my price range and too impractical to get my spouses approval on.
“How Much Goodwill Can Tesla Afford To Lose?”
To answer this question, its the same as every other car maker: none. Every PR or customer serbvice stumble by any company is bad, as it can get amplified by a single user on line to a much larger audience.
The specific answer in Tesla’s case, for me, is I hope they lose all of it. I sat in one as a passgenger a few years ago. No key, no buttons for anything, not even a start button? Need to use their app on a phone to operate it since there are no keys, even as a back up?
Its been a lot of percieved sleekness and style at the sacrifice of practical usability and safety for a while. A driver shouldn’t have to deal with a touchscreen and a menu/sub-menu to change the temp or the audio input source. That’s just dangerous.
Other car makers do it to, but at least have physical buttons on the steering wheel for some of them.
Yes, I would and did seriously consider buying a C8 Z06, and went as far as talking to several dealers about them.
Ultimately the 5BW ended up being a better fit (and was much easier to convince my wife on), but I haven’t given up hope on buying a Z before the C8 run is over. 8600 RPM screaming behind your head would be incredible.
The Blackwing is the correct answer.
I agree, you definitely should buy the (Nissan) Z before the C8 run is over! 😉
Tesla has managed to mostly alienate the demographic who is most interested in electric cars while pandering to the demo who hates them. Meanwhile a whole bunch of people who previously didn’t have much of an opinion on its leader are being brought up to speed on how thoroughly he’s lost his mind.
If the car company wants to thrive or maybe even survive they need to cut loose that dead weight because until that day it’s my personal mission to make that company as toxic as smoking.
You’re not the only one on that mission. They’re changing Tesla advertising to the “swasticar” these days.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/everyone-hates-elon-musk-x-donald-trump-protest-politics-campaign-viral-1236149106/
I still want a C6 Grand Sport
Tesla will probably benefit from the tariffs on account of them being on the leaderboard for American made cars.
I’ve been under contract for a new Jeep Wrangler for over a month, dealer discovered something wrong during the test drive. When they found what was wrong they placed an order for the part that the factory or one of the suppliers screwed up, over a month later no part, and the dealership is reaching out to other dealerships hoping one of them has the part in stock.
The whole point of me getting a new car was parts availability, dealerships that can work on it, and a warranty wouldn’t hurt.
Ironically enough I’m now looking at a new 40kWh Nissan Leaf, with my theory being BEVs are very simple and have very little to go wrong, the Leaf is actually somewhat practical to street park and charge off of 120v AC, and I just discovered Nismo makes a 2 way Helical LSD for the Leaf.
If Nissan goes tits up that’ll suck but considering this current generation of the Leaf is at an end and the next gen Leaf looks to be yet another Temu Tesla Model Y I’m not interested in, parts availability for the Leaf will probably be pretty consistent whether or not Nissan is around anymore.
On Musk, he’s having a hard time dealing with any kind of criticism because he’s been insulated from it for a long time. Owning a car company is mildly interesting, but it doesn’t really affect 99% of Americans who do not drive one of his products, so nobody really cared about him.
Once he heisted Twitter and got involved in politics, the landscape changed. Now the things he says and does actually do have an impact on regular Americans who aren’t his customers. And that means everything he says or does is open to all of the ridicule, hate, and vitriol the Internet has to offer.
But for years, he’s surrounded himself with sycophants who made him feel like he was practically a God or something. So the newfound hate hits him really hard.
Coincidentally, surrounding one’s self with sycophants is also that other guy’s M.O.- y’know, the President or whatever.
I think you have said this before, but don’t you live near a northern coast?
Would I consider a Corvette? Yes!
They’re a ton of fun and V8’s are awesome. The C1 and C2’s are genuinely beautiful. The C5-C7’s provide a ton of fun for the dollar.
Is it at the top of my list? No.
I have considered it. Not a new one, but a C5 is certainly an option I consider when browsing local sales listings. If the right deal pops up at the right time, I could see myself in one.
A new one, though? It just doesn’t have the same draw for me. It’s fast, sure, but I’m not going to spend that kind of money on a track toy and I tend to go for something more comfortable for daily driving and road trips. It also feels more like a generic supercar than a Corvette to me.
And generic supercar isn’t bad! It’s a much lower cost of entry than most of the competition, for a hell of a car. It just doesn’t feel like it has the same Corvette soul as previous generations. Which is probably some of the change in demographics–the buyers who want it will naturally diverge from the buyers of previous generations.
I know it was wanted for years to have a mid-engine Corvette, but I feel like it really lost something when it went from C7 to C8. To me they look more like every other mid-engine supercar and kind of bland and at the same time too busy. It also made sense at the time as they had the Camaro that was catching up on performance and do you really need 2 V8 front engine rear wheel drive sports cars that at around $60k?
Now that the Camaro’s gone it’d be nice to see the Corvette go back to a front engine rear wheel drive, even add in the hybrid front for some awd stability. Or maybe bring back the Camaro with different fueled options to compete with the new Charger Daytona.
I feel like the C8 is simultaneously a better sports car and a worse Corvette.
Absolutely! And I have to wonder if that’s some of the shift in the age of owners. The people who traditionally bought Corvettes bought them because of the brand identity. New buyers are buying it because it is an American supercar for sports car money. Which is a good reason to buy it, but can make the traditional buyer feel a little left out.
Definitely, for the price the performance is a bragain, but guys that aspired to own Corvettes for 20 years and they finally can and it’s the Stingray I can see them saying ‘meh’, and just opting for an older C7.
For sure. If I were buying a Corvette (not that I’m the guy who’s been longing for one), I’d definitely be looking used, because it’s just not the same. I’d probably mostly look at C5s, but a C7 still has the vibe.
That said, the guy who’s lusted after a Lambo might get a C8 because it’s so much more attainable, and maybe that’s the more lucrative market to chase at this point.
Well said!
It might look like every other mod-engined supercar, but let’s not forget that the C8 is an $85,000 American supercar. It has legitimate performance credentials at K-Mart Blue Light Special pricing.
Would I buy one today? No, because I’m not at a place in my life where I would spend $85,000 on a car no matter how good it is. But I do believe that the C8 is incredibly underrated.