Tesla is having a bad year, with a double-digit percentage decline in global sales thanks to a combination of fairly obvious factors. In response, the automaker is piling on the discounts, especially in markets where sales are really slumping. Depending on where you live, it might be the best time to buy a Tesla in ages, provided you’re not terribly concerned with optics.
At the same time, Germany isn’t happy with the European Union’s negotiated U.S. tariff rate on cars, Acura looks to bring back hybrids just years after discontinuing all of them, and DC fast chargers might be making the air around them slightly worse. Weird, that.
Welcome back to The Morning Dump, where we corral the freshest bite-sized automotive news stories and assemble them into a sort-of information casserole for your enjoyment. At least, I think that’s what a casserole is. I’m not actually sure, and I don’t even know if I want to know. All I know is that they sometimes involve unspeakable uses of tuna. Anyway, Matt’s travelling today, so I’m in the kitchen this morning. Let’s get into it.
Tesla Juices Deals As Its Bad Year Continues
Typically, when supply of a particular model of car outstrips demand, the way to move all that metal is to throw some cash the consumer’s way by discounting cars, subsidizing interest rates, adding freebies, or if an automaker’s really desperate, a combination of all three. Just look at Tesla right now. A precipitous drop in sales in several important markets outside of the United States has resulted in the company throwing some serious incentives at its cars. Let’s start in Britain, where the Times reports:
Tesla sales in the UK dropped by 60 per cent in July to 987 units, from 2,462 a year earlier. The decline pushed Tesla’s market share to 0.7 per cent, while China’s BYD claimed 2.3 per cent of all new registrations, according to the latest data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
While it’s easy to chalk this one up to the antics of the man in charge of the company, that likely isn’t the only factor. Car shoppers in the United Kingdom can get into inexpensive Chinese-made EVs, and some of them have fairly strong showroom appeal. Alright, so an MG S5 EV has some bits inside it that feel a bit cheap, but guess what? It starts at £28,745 for a spacious Model Y-sized electric crossover. So, between increased competition, a decline in public sentiment, and a reported shortage in places to put unsold cars, Tesla is incentivizing leases big-time. As the Times reports:
A Tesla Model 3 can be leased for as little as £252 a month plus VAT on a 36-month contract at Silverstone Leasing, one of Tesla’s partners in the UK.
Tesla’s latest model, the Model Y, retails for about £60,000, but it was advertised for as low as £376.97 a month plus VAT on Synergy Car Leasing’s website last week. Other deals on the Model Y, which was only launched in May, were priced at just over £400 a month.
Those are significant incentives at play considering a lease on a Model 3 used to be about double that, and Britain isn’t alone. Up in Canada, General Motors has overtaken Tesla to be the top seller of battery electric vehicles after Tesla sales fell by 67 percent over the first half of 2025. As Automotive News reports, “Buyers registered slightly more than 9,000 Teslas from January through June, far short of the more than 26,000 in the first two quarters of 2024 according to data from S&P Global Mobility.” Clearly, things haven’t turned around substantially because Tesla is now offering free lifetime Supercharging on in-stock Canadian Model 3 sedans, along with thousands of dollars on the hoods of in-stock examples and freebies like no-charge premium paint and upgraded wheels. Even in the States, Tesla is offering programs like a $299-per-month 24-month Model 3 lease with $3,000 down and a 10,000-mile annual limit.
It’s a stark difference from a few years ago, when a new car bubble let Tesla hike pricing without turning off too many buyers. So, will incentives be enough to claw back from a 13.5 percent year-over-year decline in global Q2 deliveries? Maybe, maybe not. Still, if you can live with the current social stigmas that some assign to Tesla ownership, there are some deals to be had.
Tariffs And Buts
If there’s one thing we’ve likely learned in recent years, it’s that nothing’s over until it’s over. The European Union has negotiated a 15 percent tariff rate with America, but it’s not quite set in stone just yet. Unsurprisingly, an agreement between the two entities hasn’t been finalized, and cars are shaping up to be a huge sticking point. As Reuters reports:
“In particular, car tariffs must be reduced quickly as agreed. We are also aware of the considerable burden on the export-orientated economy. … Our role here is to continue to fully support the European Commission in this process,” a German government spokesman said in a press conference.
Considering how significant the American market is for German automakers, it’s only fair for Germany to object to the current tentative tariff rate. After all, not only is America the second-largest market by volume for BMW and Mercedes-Benz, it’s also the largest single-country market for Porsche. Does the door swing both ways? Well, the made-in-America Ford Mustang was Germany’s favorite sports coupe in 2017, 2020, and 2021, so there is at least some demand for certain American cars in Germany. No matter how you look at it, there’s big money on the line here, and we’d expect sensible negotiations if these were more precedented times. Unfortunately, we aren’t living in precedented times, so hold onto your hats because this all has the potential to go sideways.
Acura Is Pivoting Back To Hybrids
It’s been a big year for backtracking. While Acura is set to launch its second EV next year, the RSX crossover, the brand seems to be recognizing that the leap from combustion-powered vehicles straight to battery electric vehicles was premature. As American Honda director Katsushi Inoue told Automotive News:
“We will maximize the production of ICE and hybrid models to meet the needs of our customers and to fuel investment in the technology,” Inoue said.
“But we have not changed our commitment to electric vehicles,” he said. “It’s just about adjusting the timing to match the needs of the customers.”
Despite the brand previously offering the MDX Sport Hybrid crossover, RLX Sport Hybrid sedan, and NSX hybrid supercar, all those models have disappeared over the past few years. The RLX and NSX are gone in their entirety, and the MDX has gone all-combustion, meaning Acura currently doesn’t sell a hybrid in North America. It does offer the GM-built ZDX electric crossover, but customers who don’t want a full-on battery electric vehicle don’t have a middle ground in the Acura lineup anymore. Bringing back hybrids would allow Acura to better compete with Lexus, along with plug-in hybrid offerings from European brands.
Although we don’t yet know which Acura models are going hybrid, the Integra sedan and ADX crossover would both benefit from the Civic Hybrid’s powertrain, especially since both models ride on the Civic’s platform. Likewise, we’re coming due for a new RDX compact crossover soon based on a historic six-year model cycle for the vehicle, and with the new CR-V benefitting from a hybrid powertrain, don’t be surprised if it’s considered for the next RDX.
Dirty Chargers
Thanks to a combination of the scientific process and everyone being very tired, new developments happen, better studies are run, smart people find out new stuff, and the stream of both knowledge and outdated information eventually becomes saturated to the point where nobody can keep track of, say, whether eating butter is better or worse than eating margarine. If that doesn’t wear you out enough, here’s a new one: Researchers have found that DC fast charging stations may contribute to local air pollution. Wait, what?
According to researchers at the University of California, the fans inside DC fast charging power cabinets can kick up dust and other settled PM2.5 fine particulate matter, which seems rather obvious. However, how bad is this, really? As Bloomberg reports:
Researchers took air quality measurements at 50 direct current fast charging stations in Los Angeles County, California, the majority of which were Tesla Supercharger locations. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The average concentration of fine particulate matter in the air at the charging sites was 15.2 micrograms per cubic meter, slightly higher than what researchers found at gas stations and significantly higher than in other urban locations such as parks.
Alright, so, not ideal considering the EPA annual average limit for PM2.5 sits at nine micrograms per cubic meter, but it could be way worse. For instance, cooking can easily spike localized PM2.5 well beyond 15.2 micrograms per cubic meter, and most of us do that every dar. Besides, this certainly isn’t an insurmountable problem, as exhaust filters could help reduce fine particulate matter thrown up by charging cabinet fans. Who knows? Maybe a consumable like that would actually require charging companies to maintain their stuff.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
“Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2” was a good time, yeah? While Hot Action Cop got the most coveted spot on the soundtrack, accompanying the intro sequence, “Build Your Cages” by Montreal-based alternative metal band Pulse Ultra also ripped.
The Big Question:
What’s your big prediction for what happens to Tesla next?
Top graphic image: Tesla
The redesign of the Model Y was a bad move. It’s not really an improvement and now visually brands the vehicle as purchased post-salute.
If they had left it alone, people could claim they bought it before he revealed himself.
What’s the future for Tesla? Probably slow decline and then a shift to something other than building / selling cars. The policy changes not only hit them in their retail sales, but also eliminated their cash flow from selling carbon swaps.
The whole thing is in desperate need of a 2nd generation and the same thing is true for the 3. I just don’t think Elon is interested in boring stuff like that and would rather just build some entirely new model.
Or at least he was – it seems like he doesn’t even really care about the Roadster any more.
I have no bandwidth left for Tesla’s new product promises.
They are always late or a no-show, and Musk inserting himself into the product development process always results in higher costs and a worse product.
Remember the Model S door handles that couldn’t survive winter use? Elon. Cameras instead of more reliable sensors? Elon. Promising a road car with rocket boosters? Elon.
Imagine where that company could be right now if he hadn’t been holding it back for the last 5+ years with his nonsense.
This is an excellent point. Imagine if they just ran it like a normal car company??? The cars would be so far ahead of what BYD is doing. Or, at least they would be at the same level. I kinda have a hard time believing anyone will ever catch up to BYD at this point, but Tesla was the one company that actually had a chance.
I’ve been wondering the same thing, if they could have an entire line of cheap(er) cars by now instead of wasting a massive amount of resources on the cybertruck. It’s obvious they have a huge amount of talent, but it seems to just be directed at moronic, childish pursuits.
I don’t know if they have the pick of talent anymore. Someone who wants to build EVs can do it at a more stable company, and people who have been there and seen their CEO go on unhinged firing rampages (X and then, of course, DOGE) will probably gladly trade their positions for a more stable one given the chance.
And there is always the threat of having to uproot your family and move to South Dakota if they offer the company a better tax deal.
The fact that he specifically moved to TX because he had to mistreat his production workers less in CA is a solid sign of what it’s like to work there.
True, past tense would maybe be more appropriate
Their whole lineup needs a 2nd generation. The “continual improvements” or whatever they call it, only goes so far. Especially when your entire lineup is competing based on newest, bestest, most techiest, and that shit.
The Model 3 came out eight years ago. The Model Y five years ago. Both of them needed a 2nd generation at the 4-5 year mark. Not facelifts.
The fact the Model S hasn’t gotten a 2nd generation is laughable. It’s 13 years old. It’s worse than the Nissan Xterra when that was killed. The Model X is 10 years old.
The other day I saw a refreshed Tesla with temp tags and it already had the “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” sticker on the back window.
No one else is as dumb as you are, my dude, and I hope someone sets your shit on fire.
I must applaud the comments here for being remarkably civil and thankfully anti-antisocial. Glad people can finally agree that Tesla in general is just kinda shit and Elon is real and actual shit.
The charging story is a definite nothingburger; as soon as the methodology gets glossed over for the “results” you don’t have science anymore. My box fan causes pollution in my apartment.
I would rather find out how hot dogs are made.
That’s not in reference to casseroles, it’s in reference to owning a Tesla.
The charger “pollution” study is such a non-story. Reading the paper, they were showing (on average) a doubling of PM2.5 particulate counts very close to the charger cabinets, and attributing it all to redistributed existing environmental dust. If that’s their criteria for claiming something’s causing pollution I look forwards to their followup headline studies on the following causes of pollution:
– Truck air brake spitter valves
– Toddlers running around
– Grampa shuffling his feet as he walks
To be fair, toddlers do produce a lot of methane gas along with particulate matter
So does Grampa.
If you live on a street with a hill, brake dust is a thing as well. There is a long downhill on rt 84 near me, and everytime I drive down or up it, I smell brake dust. There are crop fields near there, and just the other day I was thinking to myself that I would never buy anything that was farmed from there. But, how would I know…?
And brake dust is certainly much worse to be breathing than whatever dust the charger is kicking up, on average. Even if they are asbestos free pads.
The Tesla overflow lot on E. Sahara Ave in Las Vegas remains stuffed past capacity. It sits on the site of an abandoned K-Mart. Maybe they need to run some “blue light specials”.
Yeah, Musk made a big mistake by getting Trumpstain all over his loved-by-hipster-liberals car company. Also, he helped get rid of the EV subsidies?
Genius!
Same decade old perspective. If you want any new vehicle, Lease It! They are all grossly compromised with spying, dated software. EVs are the future, but I won’t buy them until someone offers a simplified, non- software defined, replaceable battery module version. Battery Tech may be completely changed in the very near future. I found this article compelling.
https://scitechdaily.com/ai-just-found-the-future-of-batteries-and-its-not-lithium/
Batteries are already replaceable and the car you’ve described is the Chevy Bolt.
A good choice if it fits your needs. I’m sticking with my 2010 MB that just turned 67k. miles. Only drive 5k. year, keep it maintained, gets 27mpg. hwy. runs and looks new. Barring any idiot running a red that totaled my last car, I may be set for life.
“Tesla is having a bad year”
Cue up the Donald Glover “Good” meme:
https://media1.tenor.com/m/eB1XhgprvgkAAAAd/donald-glover-good.gif
Yeah, no cash for fash, as they say.
“At least, I think that’s what a casserole is. I’m not actually sure, and I don’t even know if I want to know. All I know is that they sometimes involve unspeakable uses of tuna.”
They also sometimes involve unspeakable uses of peas and mayo. At Thanksgiving at my house the ex-MIL used to bring a casserole of peas and onions and what not in a casserole pan separately with a giant jar of mayo so she could finish baking the casserole in the oven and then plop giant blobs of mayo from aforementioned giant jar on top of the casserole. For all I know the casserole could’ve also had tuna in it but my kids and I never ate it since we’re vegan. And she would bring it almost every year, gah. So, yeah, you really don’t want to know about casseroles like that, lol.
Tesla could be selling their cars for $10,000 after incentives and I still wouldn’t buy one. Musk isn’t getting a single cent out of me, no matter how many incentives, rebates, or offers are stacked on the hood. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror knowing that I chose to line Musk’s pockets and help him break my country.
It’s easy to say that Musk’s “antics” are not the only reason for Tesla’s drop in sales, but you can’t overlook the public’s view of Musk and Tesla as a significant factor. Other EV makers are profiting off it, and they are offering cheaper cars; until recently people didn’t have a problem paying for Tesla’s superior performance numbers – so what changed? I think we all know the answer.
But I would gladly pay good money for the chance to kick the shit out of that idiot’s ass.
Just saying…YMMV as always.
I dunno, if they were selling them at enough of a loss I’d consider it. I’d have to be pretty confident it’d be a long-term net loss for Musk, though.
Sorry man, but there are some things that just aren’t worth it – and driving a Swasticar is one of them. Even if the thing was free I just couldn’t do it, it’s like saying “at least the train is on time” in Germany, 1934. No excuses.
For Tesla, I can see it being sold by hitler salute boy, for not very much, to “funds”, who will change its name as soon as possible.
Buying a Tesla now is flaunting far-right political views, and most far-right voters in Europe do not have the cash for Teslas.
So… what about VW and Mercedes? Just curious.
WWII ended 80 years ago, and to my knowledge, neither company is being run by someone who has thrown an actual Nazi salute in public.
They bombed my granny and grandpa. No-one in our family has bought German since…
Not sure people in the States get the resonances. It is still illegal, with likely prison sentences, to display swastikas in France, and to give nazi or nazi inspired salutes.
There is a French comedian, who mocked Jews and invented a sort of inverted nazi salute where the hand pointed to the floor. He was jailed.
What happens to Tesla? It does what Musk envisions; sinks or swims while shifting its primary business model from providing personal vehicles to autonomous transportation appliances intending to put much of the gig economy out of business. As Tesla moves closer to its goal, selling off their supercharger network and repurposing its service centers as rototaxi hubs wouldn’t be surprising moves.
As for existing Tesla vehicles, an increasing number of owners of older examples will be in a bind as Tesla ends service and software support for them, leading to a new front in the right to repair movement.
“Tesla Is Running Some Serious Discounts”
Um – Not on Model S or X, where prices just increased overnight another 10K on top of the 5K price increase a few weeks ago.
https://insideevs.com/news/769256/tesla-model-s-model-x-price-increase-fsd-supercharging/
Maybe if Tesla had a CEO who was interested in running a car company….
This Bloomberg “reporting” is absolute garbage, and this study is being overblown. So what we are all being told by Bloomberg is that “EV Fast Chargers Have a Surprising Health Downside” (their headline) because there was “A slight increase” in PM2.5 concentrations relative to gas stations. There is so much that they don’t clarify that has serious implications on what we take away from this:
Area of effect, how close to the charger cabinet?
BY HOW MUCH? seriously, “a slight increase” doesn’t mean much at all.
What else was measured?
HOW was this measured?
Any other things increased? At all? A slight delta in ONE metric is negligible, how about CO2, Methane, other fumes, particulate sizes, etc?
What is the actual exposure risk?
The article itself even mentions that gas stations are full of VOCs and other compounds more harmful, but only slip it in after offering up a graph of the massively increasing number in DCFC cabinets being built in the US, just to add some fear to the situation.
All of this screams of researchers having a grant about to expire, publishing a result that shows next to nothing of impact or value, and the media turning it into another health scare now that the public knows what PM2.5 is post-pandemic.
Or, worse, researchers afraid they’ll lose grants, so they publish the most negative result about EVs in hopes of continuing to receive federal money.
I would not for a second doubt that there are groups in this position. I live in a college town and know a lot of people who’s jobs or advanced degree programs hinge on funding, and it’s a complete bloodbath, and even those who have funding have no confidence in it lasting. We all thought the word unprecedented got used a lot in 2020, but 2025 is proving to be worse.
This incresed applicability of the word “unprecedented” is unprecedented.
Bloomberg reporting is ALWAYS garbage.
I would barely believe a Bloomberg story about an event that I witnessed personally.
Tesla doing poorly? I’m sending sincere oh noes and anyways.
YesVerySad-Anyway.gif
Thoughts and prayers.
After reading Ashlee Vance’s book in 2015 I became a big Elon fan and broke my rule about owning single stocks and bought some TSLA. It’s done very well for me over the past decade and I made some money. He’s always been an asshole and never in a million years would I ever want to work for any of his companies but aren’t all billionaire CEOs dicks to some degree? But after Covid and the Biden snubs and his atrocious reaction to his daughter I soured on the dude, but my shares were still doing good so I kept them, until the Nazi salute. I type all this to say that since I no longer own any TSLA I’m not concerned what happens to Tesla next.
“Still, if you can live with the current social stigmas that some assign to Tesla ownership, there are some deals to be had”
I get that you’re just being objective here Thomas, but I’m going to encourage everyone to resist the deals and explore the competition. 5 years ago if you wanted a usable EV Tesla was more or less the only game in town. Now competition from Ford, GM, Hyundai, etc. have largely caught up and don’t require you to hand your money over to a racist robber baron who’s hellbent on ending democracy.
The new Toyota and Subaru EVs that are coming seem pretty compelling as well, with interesting designs, 300ish horsepower and miles of range, and NACS ports. Yes, you’re still giving Elmo some of your money when charging, but it’s not going to come anywhere near handing him $50,000 for a new car.
I’m also seeing all sorts of “I hate Elon I swear” bumper stickers on Teslas lately (including new ones!) and I struggle to wrap my head around them. I get that not everyone is terminally on car blogs but like…he wasn’t just outed as being a problematic whacko in the last year. This was easy to find public information 5 years ago. Google is your friend.
Anyway re: Acura it’s hard to wrap my head around how profoundly they’ve fucked up. They abandoned hybrids like imbeciles despite Honda being one of the leaders/early adopters in that area, they simultaneously let their ICE powertrains languish to the point that they’re a generation plus behind the competition, and all they have to show for it right now are a mediocre GM EV, an upcoming crossover EV for an overcrowded market that’s bringing back their most widely despised design feature (why is that? Is it just the usual Japanese manufacturer attitude of “you’ll get the car how WE think it should be and the customer is wrong” or is it something else?) and a bunch of crossovers that aren’t competitive.
Their biggest success right now is the Integra, which is baffling, although as an enthusiast I appreciate it and like that car. I just don’t understand how they wound up with no hybrids, two bad EVs, and ICE engines that wouldn’t have been competitive a decade ago. For a company that’s as smart as Honda they sure screwed the pooch here and I worry about Acura’s future.
I don’t agree. Most people aren’t paying attention, at all. But, this year, suddenly they have HAD to pay attention, because of just how ludicrous it has been. He did bad stuff before, but what he did this year got headlines that people who don’t pay attention to actually saw.
Then they put a bumper sticker on their car, because, despite not paying attention, it’s harder to make a major life change (aka buy a new car) than it is to just put a bumper sticker on the current one hoping people understand.
And, we both know, when you see that bumper sticker, you understand.
I treat those bumper stickers the same way I treat the Student Driver ones: with extreme skepticism and/or incredulity.
You see the stickers on the new Model Y, though. And there is no way that someone who is aware enough to place that sticker on their Tesla didn’t know before they bought that one.
And I have personally known at least one (very politically active) person to buy a Tesla and immediately buy the bumper sticker, which tells me he was willing to compromise his beliefs regarding Musk because he wanted an EV and didn’t listen to my suggestions of EVs that would fit his needs. (To be fair, he didn’t like the VW, didn’t like the idea of Hyundai/Kia for his lawyer image, and may have actually checked out the BMW, which I thought he would choose.)
As usual, there are exceptions to all rules, but I agree. But, you also pointed out the red flag… lawyer. Not every one of them is married to a Mercedes. Most probably aren’t.
I am in the market for an EV. I also don’t lease, buy new, or spend more than $25k. There’s not a lot of choice outside of 2 or 3 year old Model Ys that get decent range with decent performance given my parameters.
I’ve been trying for a month to convince myself that I could separate the car from the CEO, but have so far been unsuccessful. As their values plummet my cheapo lizard brain may eventually beat that logic into submission. Then I’ll be one of those folks with one of those stickers on a de-badged Tesla. Sigh.
Not a lot of choice? On my local classifieds you can buy a late model Ioniq 5 or EV6 or Mach-e all day long for the same money as a Model Y.
All or most of the Mach-Es have around 230 miles of range and are RWD. Those also have resistive heat, so the range plummets in the winter.
Same deal with the H/K twins. Most of the ones in my price range are RWD without a heat pump with similar range to the Mach-Es mentioned above. With the added benefit of ICCU issues that can brick the thing for months while you wait for a part from Korea.
EVs, yes. Still not quite apples to apples. I’ve searched and searched and now have a ton of knowledge I don’t care about for vehicles that will all be forgotten.
You’re in the kitchen producing the morning dump? I’ll bring my own snacks, thanks.
Can you be careful with that? I’m allergic to nuts.
– Manwich Sandwich
P.S. Please forgive me Manwich Sandwich – I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but the start of your comment below made this too good to pass up.
“if you can live with the current social stigmas that some assign to Tesla ownership”
Nope… I can’t.
“the fans inside DC fast charging power cabinets can kick up dust and other settled PM2.5 fine particulate matter,”
Don’t fans everywhere do that? Like the fans in A/C units or fans used to cool ICEs?
“What’s your big prediction for what happens to Tesla next?”
I predict that Tesla will start losing money later this year. I also predict there will be a reckoning with the share price. Right now TSLA shares are “priced for perfection”.
I also predict that Musk won’t leave Tesla as he should, the board won’t do its fiduciary duty and continue to be mostly useless.
I also predict that when Tesla starts losing money, Musk will get pissed and make irrational decisions that will further hurt the company.
And from a revenue/profit perspective, I believe Tesla’s glorified taxi service will be a black hole and will never be a major contribution to the company’s profit. There is too much competition for that to happen. It makes me think of all the marijuana companies… big market for Marijuana products, but way too many companies with way too much competition which ensures most aren’t making money. And the few companies that are making money, it’s razor-thin margins that aren’t worth investing in from my perspective.
I also think their restaurant has a 50-50 chance of success in the long run after the hype dies down. Conceptionally I think pairing a restaurant or a cafe with charging is a great idea. But based on what I see/read, the Tesla restaurant is nothing special and is overpriced for the food you actually get.
Honestly I think the most interesting thing from a profit perspective for Tesla will be the Semi once production ramps up.
If Musk can find enough customers to pay 13 bucks for a Costco 1.50 hot dog, he’ll never have to worry about finances again. And the social credit points for building that restaurant out of Boring Company recycled rock dust bricks should win him many more fans.
With the hours and menu being cut after 2 weeks, that diner thing doesn’t seem to be going as well as expected. Griffin’s scathing review of the tacos was definitely the beginning of the downfall.
https://fortune.com/2025/08/12/elon-musk-tesla-diner-menu-hours-changes/
Please see comment to That One Guy’s post above.
LOL
I wish this were true, but Tesla will dodge any stock price drop. Sure Musk makes terrible design decisions (post above with examples of how he screws up the cars, but add gullwing doors and a truck that looks like a triangle to the list).
Even if you don’t believe in humanoid robots, or robotaxis, or solar panels, or grid connected batteries, if the stock price drips, Tesla’s salvation is simple – he buys an AI company – namely xAI. That will absolutely send the stock price to the moon. Not because it will someday make money, but because any credible AI play has nearly infinite value right now.
Musk clearly doesn’t understand politics, or engineering, or social interaction, but he may be the best the world has ever seen at financing companies. Selling twitter for a $1B profit to xAi, makes the AOL purchase of Time Warner (perhaps the best M&A in history) look like a toddler pulled it off. He has made a lot of people very wealthy and greed is a powerful emotion. People cant give him their money fast enough.
The drop in Tesla sales is only part of Tesla’s problem, a huge chunk of their income came from selling carbon credits to legacy automakers. Now that legacy car companies are making their own EVs the demand for those carbon credits is dropping. The rise in other EVs isn’t just hitting Tesla in the sales department, it’s undermining the entire business model that depended on ICE vehicles needing carbon credits.
Crazy thought, but has Tesla considered maybe launching a new model that doesnt look like a Frank Gehry doorstop?
I would legitimately pay for a Frank Gehry doorstop. Just a small wad of shiny crumpled metal.
Most public figures are rehabilitated in time.
Imagine telling a group of Democrats in 2008 that a majority of them would look favorably on George W Bush a decade later.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/22/politics/george-w-bush-favorable-poll/index.html
The point being, no matter how loathed Elon Musk and Tesla are right at this moment, the odds are decent that if he steps back from the limelight (big if, but I certainly haven’t heard much the last few months from him) his image will improve over time. That’s just the way public opinion tends to go.
That also isn’t even taking into account the other half of the country that doesn’t see supporting Republicans as a sin at all.
That information is profoundly disappointing…and as destructive as Trump is what he’s currently doing pales in comparison to W starting multiple wars that achieved absolutely nothing, are estimated to have cost hundreds of thousands to even millions of lives, cost our country trillions of dollars, and served no purpose other than fueling the military industrial complex and lining his and and his cronies’ pockets.
Trump may damn well get there, but we don’t talk about the war crimes of W and his administration nearly enough.
The point is obviously not to defend GWB, but only to highlight that the public is fickle, attention spans are short, things are forgotten, new generations grow into adults without firsthand knowledge of the person in question, and so on. Look no farther than this very website to find nostalgia for stuff that wasn’t really very good, objectively.
I strongly suspect the same type of rehabilitation will occur a decade or two from now for both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, neither of whom seem likely to leave office with a favorable approval rating.
I won’t even get into the subject of the wars and other, ancillary consequences of those wars (like the department of homeland security as example) but the cost actually pales in comparison to the costs under Obama and Trump.
Obama had to contend with recession spending that provided a lot of additional entitlement spending with no sunset to stop after the recession. Trump had to spend for COVID and all that. Both of them also paid for portions of those wars GWB got us into as they had no real end date so some concessions given there.
From start to finish, GWB took us from $4T to $8T in national debt.
Obama was at $20T at the end of his two terms and Trump took us to about $32T after just 4 years.
What we are spending in this country I think has us on a course that is going to be very painful for those who live through it. Regardless of what we are spending it on, we really need to find a way to slow it down and I’d certainly be fine with less spending on unnecessary wars.
And, instead of actually paying down that debt with all this new cash, we are just going to be paying it back as dividends. Paltry, small, pointless dividends designed to hoodwink those that don’t pay attention into thinking they are getting something back for all this pain they now feel.
Well that’s just paying the interest on the debt, which they have to do legally. We have an incredibly long road ahead before we even get to paying down a cent of principal. Hell, we have an impossibly long road ahead just to get to a point of not adding billions to the balance every single day.
I think there are a couple things that may prevent Trump from getting the same rehabilitation and lack of discussion:
GWB was a war criminal, but most of his worst was reserved for other countries (and our military members). Americans are notoriously America-first. Trump has overseen a curtailment of American rights and is currently deploying military forces in American cities.
Trump is older. He’s likely to die before he can soften his image with things like GWB painting and such. I also don’t believe he would be content to settle into a palatable quiet existence.
Hard to say, though. Jimmy Carter remains pretty reviled by GOPers, despite all his charity work and Reagan should probably be more hated than he is by anyone left-leaning. I hope history casts GWB in a much worse light than current Dems cast him in.
The right has softened on Bill Clinton somewhat, yeah, Hillary is still reviled, and theres still the Clinton crime family conspiracy stuff, but when he was in office, he was painted as some far-left ’60s socialist radical (despite working pretty effectively with a Republican Congress and doing a lot of back and forth horse trading/negotiation), and a lot of that has been forgotten or faded since, with even conservatives seeing him as much more of a moderate in retrospect, but that really wasn’t how they saw him in the 90s
That’s fair. Clinton could have easily passed for a Republican in a lot of ways, but they were great at marketing him as a villain. And the gun folks still hate the assault weapons restrictions that were allowed to sunset, but that’s the only negative they still put on him at all. But, yeah, I don’t hear much criticism of him beyond that, just a lot of shit about Hillary. I don’t know if she’ll be rehabilitated, but I guess time will tell.
I still maintain that the Dems would hold the presidency right now if they has put Bill in total control of the campaign and listened to whatever he had to say. Guy is an absolute master politician, all he really cares about is being on the winning side, and he has the right instincts to get there
That is absolutely true. He should have become the go-to campaign manager for Dems.
Nearly every social ill we are dealing with as a country today can be traced directly to Reagan.
It was a long time ago. We have short and stupid attention spans in the US.
/s
Purely from a human suffering standpoint I think Trump’s actions already will surpass GWB but unfortunately it will be less visible. The semi-legitimate and fully illegitimate wars of GWB had direct and indirect deaths estimated at about 4.5M people. Trump destroying USAID is estimated to increase deaths by 14M over the next 5 years with 4.5M deaths just for children under age 5. As I understand it these numbers are not accounting for the additional global instability that will be caused by the desperation of the poor, sick, and starving populations.
Applying this back to Musk – he was a huge cheerleader for cancelling USAID including bragging in a tweet (that is still up) about spending the weekend feeding it into a woodchipper. He has no term limits, has shown very little capacity for self-reflection and cannot imagine a situation where he isn’t the main character so I don’t see a case for us collectively just being able to forget what a miserable person he is.
Elon’s image will improve if he can stay on his meds and keep his mouth shut, but Tesla is going to be sunk by the time it takes for that to happen. What they really need are some new models and 2nd generations of the 3 and Y, but there’s literally nothing in the pipeline and Elon clearly could not care any less about cars.
I don’t think Tesla is in any imminent danger of failing, but I agree that some new designs would probably help their cause.
They’re really just coasting right now. If they didn’t have the direct sales model and Supercharger network I think they’d be sunk.
Selling carbon credits is what’s keeping them afloat, and that’s been declining as legacy makers start producing more hybrids and their own EVs.
“Elon’s image will improve if he can stay on his meds and keep his mouth shut…”
In other words – Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Not a Democrat and I certainly criticized W plenty while he was in the Oval Office (not so much when he was in Austin though, he was a much better Governor than President) but I’d happily cut off your left leg to have him back as President right now.
Whose leg now?
Well, my commitment does have limits 😉
And I too would happily cut off your other leg for the same… and I too have limits to my commitment
😀
Both Trump and W are completely empty husks of human beings who are only as good as their handlers. The only thing that kept the government from completely falling during W’s tenure was the fact that there were people in his administration who were fairly competent, kind of cared about doing a good job, and had some standards.
Had he had Donald’s cabinet of talking head nincompoops and wannabe Hitler Youth’s I think things would’ve turned out much the same as they are now.
I’ve never met Trump or any of his current sycophants but I have met W, Condoleezza, Powell, and Gingrich. First off, W is surprisingly smarter and better spoken than he was portrayed in the media during his terms. I still disagree with the Patriot Act and his pronunciation of “nuclear” but he ain’t as stupid as I suspect the Orange one to be. Gingrich was odd, standing on stage behind a podium he’s very lucid and able to field any question but once he got off stage he just ambles around letting his handlers lead him by the elbow. You’re right about W surrounding himself with competency though, Powell was very bright and Condoleezza might be the smartest person I have ever listened to. I really wish she had run for office but also understand why she didn’t want to. When it comes down to it though the contents of Trump’s cabinet is nobody’s fault but his own. First time around he stuff it full of Generals, I guess because he thought it made him look tough, but they had this nasty habit of siding with the country before siding with him. This time around he’s staffed it with llameculos and that’s entirely on him.
If you haven’t read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis, these second term shenanigans were basically foretold (if he got another shot, whether 2020 or 2024; the book was written in 2018). It’s frightening to see how the people around Trump, this presidency especially, just don’t care about what they’ve been hired to do.
Hundreds of thousands of dead people in the Middle East would not….although the current administration is happily funding and supporting ethnic cleansing in Gaza that may damn well surpass the death toll and sheer levels of human suffering that W’s little parties in the region did.
People care way too damn much about norms and propriety. Bush is just as evil as Trump he’s just doesn’t say the quiet parts out loud. You wouldn’t be having to read daily headlines that would’ve been satire a decade ago on shit the administration is saying if he was in power, but the hate and suffering would be just as bad behind the scenes.
I don’t even consider myself a Democrat but I think never electing another Republican would be a damn fine start when it comes to turning this soon to be third world country around.
I’m more of a “None of the Above” guy myself. The fact that Guantanamo is still open despite 2 Ds in the Oval Office since W is disappointing to say the least.
A big part of, if not the entire, reason Bush is seen more favorably now is that many people would argue that Trump is far worse than Bush ever was. It’s also not just Elon getting involved in politics, it’s also the over promising and under delivering for well over a decade. You can only do that for so long before people start to notice and stop trusting.
Tesla’s sales were skyrocketing in the period when Musk consistently overpromised and underdelivered. Clearly that alone isn’t enough to turn people off the brand. If he steps back from politics and returns only to who he was a few years ago, I don’t think people will have the same vehement hatred, and I think sales will rebound.
I think this is very accurate. The average person that reads/comments on this site may care forever more. However, the general public doesn’t care enough about this stuff, they are too busy living their lives to worry about what Elon (or Marry Barra, or Jim Farley, or name-your-automotive-CEO) is doing. If they find a reason to buy a car from a brand that makes enough sense to them, they will make the purchase.
Uber books a lot of rides and it’s run by scumbags. Many people just don’t spend responsibly.
Uber was run by total scumbags. It’s almost certainly still run by assholes, but just run-of-the-mill corporate assholes these days. They kind of cleaned house of the most egregious scumbags when Kalanick got booted in 2017.
“ if he steps back from the limelight”
That’s one giant ‘if’… and I don’t really see him doing that.
I predict that the political backlash against Musk and Tesla will last a long time.
Dubya and his administration deserve all the criticism they’ve ever received for their feckless behaviour and warmongering.
That said, W was never an antisemitic, white-genocide touting, shit-posting megalomaniac. He’s known for being personable, and always got along well with his political allies and rivals alike. It was a different time. Punk bands wrote songs about it, but I doubt the average American really had a strong aversion to him as a person.
I’m not sure Elon or any other outspoken members of the far right movement are mentally capable of the restrained, amiable behaviour that allowed someone like W to rehabilitate his imagine.
I agree Tesla is totally capable of rebounding, however Elon needs to seriously distance himself from the company for that to happen. I think the damage has already been done for them to lose their clear first-mover advantage.
I think much the same is true of Elon Musk now.
A small minority loathe him, a small minority love him, and most people don’t care enough to form a strong opinion. They might disapprove of particular acts, opinions, or beliefs, but as long as those things aren’t front and center in their lives, it isn’t going to make the difference between buying a product vs not.
It’s really hard to put ourselves (as people who talk about cars and the industry every day) in the shoes of people who simply do not think about Musk or Tesla very often if at all. If he isn’t at the top of the news cycle, he isn’t in their head that day. He may have done bad things in the past, but the farther back that was, the less it matters in someone’s mind.
The truth is most people buy things from someone or something that could be considered morally objectionable all the time. Greedy corporations, foreign countries with human rights violations, CEOs with political views we hold toxic, industries that operate in moral gray areas or worse, and so on. We have a remarkable ability to look past that stuff, as long as it isn’t front and center in our faces. If Elon stays out of the news (again, I am not sure he can manage this) people will look beyond his past sins.
I think you’re dead wrong that the average person doesn’t have an opinion on Musk. I could see that being true 5 years ago, but not in 2025. No fucking way.
His profile and influence as a political activist now extends far, far beyond his previous reach as even a popular tech & automaker CEO. He has been widely covered by every style of news media, (mainstream & otherwise) constantly for most of the last year regarding his involvement in the election, and his role at DOGE. Both of which have real effects on the lives of the American people, or someone they know. You’d really have to be under a rock to have not heard of the guy or what he’s up to at this point.
There is a reason Tesla sales are down staggering amounts around the world. Yes, the cars are getting older and now have real competition, but the Model 3 and Y are still viable, proven products, with native support on the best charging network. I’ve never liked the cars myself, but it would be impossible to argue they aren’t still the best choice for an EV in most markets.
It would seem that ‘regular people’ (you know, the demographic who makes up the majority of car buyers) do in fact have an opinion and speak with their dollars. If Tesla sales were only down 5% in a few markets and up everywhere else, I could see the argument that Musk’s behaviour has only affected the purchases of car nerds or the most politically engaged… But the numbers do not back that up. Not 66% declines YoY anyway.
I don’t really disagree re: current sales, because he’s been in the news enough to keep the pressure on. If he stays quiet, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a rebound. That’s the way things usually work.
Don’t forget that this discussion started with the rehabilitation of the literal President of the United States though. It’s tough to be more famous and in the public eye than that, and yet here we are.
I mean, if we want to talk about car companies with some very checkered pasts with their political associations, I think VW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are pretty good ones to see how their reputations have improved, and I think it’s fair to say that’s a much much worse association than what we’re talking about here. Hell, if you want a car company with a much more problematic founder in terms of their publicly espoused views, a certain Blue Oval is there to fill that void, and I believe they still exist as well (though there was a long standing stigma among some communities that has since disappeared, so I hear).
Turning absolutely everything political just won’t fly for people who don’t care, and tends to then poison anyone who comes in contact with it.
Yeah, the real challenge would be finding a car company with nothing unethical in its past.
I agree that it is possible, but I don’t know that it happens naturally over time. Maybe if their exploits weren’t widely known or weren’t that bad, they shut the fuck up about it long enough for us to forget, and there is some aspect to their legacy that can prop them up. Or, as in Bush’s case, the goalposts for what constitutes incompetent leadership have been picked up and moved so far that you appear an elder statesmen in contrast *and* you at least make a half-assed stand against it.
Public figure images are sometimes rehabilitated with time, but I think Trump’s a big contributor to W’s.. The bar has been lowered, significantly.
I think Trump’s image will be rehabilitated more aggressively than most in the short term, but in the long run he’ll be below Buchanan and Johnson.
I’m a documented not-a-big-fan-of-tesla but that charging station issue is ridiculous. I feel like, and i am usually wrong, but there are other, much larger, contributors to air pollution that we should be having a look at.
Right, fans outdoors? Better look into every air conditioner.
I foresee them getting out of the car manufacturing business altogether and just focusing on batteries and charging stations. Elon clearly doesn’t care any more, and the EV competition is so fierce that they would need to invest billions in new generations and models just to be even with the legacy automakers.
Tesla sells off that troublesome auto division so we end up with a future like:
Come experience the 2028 Model Y at your Tesla/Land Rover/Jaguar dealer
(Land Rover, Jaguar, and Tesla Automobiles are all registered trademarks of Tata Motors, Inc.)
Keep throwing money at a CEO that makes your brand radioactive and wonder why sales are down. Great plan.
I came here to say water is wet. Be careful with it.
“Charger fans push out a little bit of dust” feels like another one of those Forest For The Trees moments in the broader discussion about pollution or climate change. This feels like the very definition of slow news day.
You know the old saying “When all you have is a Chemistry PhD and a grant that’s expiring soon, everything looks like a particulate matter emissions issue.”
That’s just Big Ash looking to kick sand over this little dust-up. Don’t want air in your dirty laundry and all that.
Talk about dusting off old talking points.
On the one hand, it’s worth knowing about these things in a general sense. If someone doesn’t look into it, we never catch unexpected sources of particulate pollution(or other harmful effects). That being said, fans kicking up dust is very different than something creating particulates.
And then there’s the fact that many people acting in bad faith will take whatever information to support their point. Like the fact that bird strikes are an issue with wind turbines is incredibly horrible when convenient for anti-wind sentiment, but bird deaths from coal pollution are ignored, despite the fact that coal kills 35 times more birds per gigawatt of energy generated. Which means that if you care about birds, wind turbines replacing coal generation SAVES them. But it’s so easy to just look at one piece of the data and twist it to say the opposite of what it really does.
Well said, yep. And the most nebulous one of all was a group that tried to quantify the incremental deaths from VW Dieselgate emissions so the company execs could be tried for murder. It wasn’t wrong, per se, it was just an unsustainable slippery slope.
I hate to break it to people, but almost everything we do kills people in some way 🙂
Except maybe creating people. Yeah, they’re all doomed to die some day. Semi /s
I did not have birds per Gigawatt on my units bingo card for the day.
1.21 gigawatts! Great Scott!
It’s also frustrating because PM2.5 is only one aspect of air quality, but because it’s published in a way that says “air quality degraded” now you’re going to have troglodytes and bad-faith news sources using this as “another reason why EVs are bad” and other such nonsense. I’ve already seen other sources take this study and run with it, completely disregarding it’s actual findings and just taking the headline conclusion and regurgitating it.
AI is only going to make this worse, unfortunately — a copy of a copy of a copy of an incorrect or incomplete source.
I would think the ozone from the high voltage would be worse than the PM2.5, but both are nothing compared to what comes out of an ICE tailpipe.
I was hoping you’d cover Tesla this morning! Saw TWO different Tesla ads on YouTube Saturday night. For a company that had no marketing department and famously never advertised I saw it as a huge red flag.
Come on down to Crazy Elon’s Car Superstore for DEALS! DEALS!! DEALS!!! Just look for the dealership with the angry mob protesting outside!
Free Ketamine w/ purchase!
“Yeah, but that TruCoat!”
Were they made by fanboys?