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.
Oh yes, 3 ton chunks of metal speeding down the street build by the local methhead of of parts of wrecked cars. Seems very idyllic.
I mean, shade tree mechanics, modified cars, kit cars, and cars restored/rebuilt by amature mechanics, etc have all existed about as long as cars in general. If your local government does vehicle inspections those will still apply when the kit cars become electric. And if it doesn’t you’ll be in no more danger than you already are.
Salvage is already a huge part of car repair and restoration, and certainly isn’t the exclusive domain of methheads.
What, do you want them to explain what’s wrong with modular interoperability by learning about it and engaging with the facts of the issue? That’s haaaarrrrrd!
It’s way easier to just invoke culturally-ingrained prejudice against drug use that was inserted into our heads by some assholes who were cynically manipulating the narrative for political gain.
I also really don’t like the implication that people without an addiction should somehow be ‘above’ reuse, salvage, or diy projects. That consuming products and filling landfills is somehow safer or more dignified. It feels like marketing at work and it’s an attitude I sometimes get from some conservative relatives who see fixing old things as poor people behavior and don’t understand why I wouldn’t just buy something new if I could afford it. I love fixing things, making things, and finding interesting ways to reuse or repurpose parts. I think this idea that buying products, especially new, should be the default or only way is wasteful and damaging. Especially when those products are deliberately made worse so you’ll buy them again and again.
I’ve done some car work over the years and easily half the parts I put in came secondhand off eBay, undoubtedly from a junkyard in some other state.
I’d like to switch to an electric vehicle but I’m deeply skeptical of the built in surveillance and overreliance on internet enabled software. I kind of wonder if my best bet for a car I trust to not spy on me or get hacked will be some kind of kit car situation in a few years.
The idea there is to take the parts off of the wrecked vehicle that arent destroyed/damaged and allowing them to be slotted in elsewhere much more easily