Three things are no secret: 1) Elon Musk benefits more than any other individual from Tesla’s success, 2) Elon Musk has gotten extremely involved in political matters (emphasis on “extremely”), and 3) many people won’t buy Tesla products because of those first two facts.
New research from JW Surety Bonds finds that 1 out of 4 Americans “avoid Tesla’s technology due to their opinions on Elon Musk.” That’s a full quarter of the US public that won’t consider great electric vehicles, including the best selling vehicle in the world, because of Musk’s highly abnormal involvement in US politics.
Before we get to more of the research, it should also be noted that Musk has been getting more and more involved, including in highly abnormal and extremely right-wing ways, in European politics — in the UK, Italy, Germany, and other major auto markets. Without a doubt, this is starting to impact consumer behavior in Europe as well.
I can’t think of anything else as significant in consumer product sales. Yes, there are some other highly politically engaged business people, but they aren’t so directly involved or tied to significant mass-market products. (I’m not counting the MyPillow guy, for example.) There are founders and CEOs of major corporations who are known political actors, but not so openly and loudly that they draw widely significant scrutiny or tarnish the brand they represent.
Not sure about the value of LiDAR, but their inability to integrate ANY multimodal sensors (RADAR or even SONAR parking sensors which are no longer on ANY of their vehicles) points to either an unwillingness/inability to solve the engineering problem of integration, penny pinching, or both. I bought a demo Model 3 in 2019 (it’s a 2018) which has ultrasound sensors (for now? It used to also have RADAR) and as our family has grown a Y would be a much better fit for us. But no chance I’m buying another Tesla.
It’s crazy that my decade old car has better sensors than every Tesla on the road
Do you mean the model used to have RADAR, or your particular car? If the latter, did they actually disable it with a software update?
My Model 3 shipped with front facing RADAR, and continued to make use of it until a software update disabled it. That was some time in 2024, I believe. New Teslas (forget when it started) all omit the front facing RADAR and the ultrasonic parking sensors. I believe the Model X still retains some ultrasonic sensors for its “falcon wing” doors to avoid obstructions.
That is absolutely infuriating