Protesters views on either "side" do not represent the majority views. I imagine most people who were interested in buying a Tesla, are not interested in being the victims of vandalism, violence, or hate.
I imagine, if the cultural signal is not the issue (which would be weird cars are perhaps the second most signaling purchase someone makes) it’s the resale value.
All teslas have cratered in value a minuscule number of them have been vandalized.
> cars are perhaps the second most signaling purchase someone makes
Exactly this.
In addition to outside signaling, buying a Tesla is a decision people often made for moral reasons. They decided to buy an expensive, relatively poorly made car with a limited range (compared to an IC car) because they could mentally offset the disadvantages of the car by morally justifying the purchase. Today, though, this is a pretty difficult justification to make.
It's also possible that people who were interested in buying a Tesla are not interested in buying a car from a man who will sig heil twice in public. There are actually still a lot of people that find Nazis revolting.
Not according to the oh so moderate and reasonable HN comments. Having an opinion about that to the point of painting signs or showing any sign of protest is an extreme view.
I think Nazism is terrible, nor do I think it was an attempt at a Nazi salute. Some people will call it a "dog whistle", but it definitely wasn't a Sieg Heil.
It was definitely a sig heil. And he did it twice. Clearly intentionally. Everyone who's saying it wasn't sound like they're gaslighting the country: we all know what we saw.
If a large bit of the US had thought I'd one a sig heil at a large event, I would certainly clarify that it wasn't one instead of making fun of the folks who ere "confudsed". The lack of clarification is all the clarification I need.
"Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes" only goes so far for most of us. Not everyone, I guess, but really, hoss we're not idiots and can tell what it was.
> The lack of clarification is all the clarification I need.
Even if he'd clarify it, his twitter posts/retweets are very much leaning in the nazi-esque direction. So any benefit of the doubt is already out of the window when not just looking at that event in a vacuum.
I'm not on TwitterX, nor do I follow clickbate stuff online. The nuances I'm seeing do not support the narrative that he is essentially Hitler reincarnated.
I'm not saying I support what he's doing; he's definitely not taking the best approach to his stated goals. But I give people the benefit of doubt (on both "sides") until proven otherwise.
Can you please link to ones you think support the Nazis or Nazi ideology?
I did a quick search and all I'm getting are the recent stupid Nazi jokes in response to people's outrage about what Musk did, or the one where Musk was talking about how government workers did Hitler's bidding.
I guess you all have never seen an autistic person make unusual gestures.
Do you have any pictures of actual Nazis making weird faces while saluting, or grabbing their chest before saluting, or raising their hand so it's not in a straight line with their extended arm, or with their body leaned back and head tilted?
Have you ever been accused of something you didn't do? Did it ever make you want to lash out? Imagine half of the country that you think you're trying to help, calling you "Hitler" and you have practically unlimited resources and are practically untouchable, how would you react? How many people do you think would choose, "Oh, I guess I should stop because people are accusing me of things I didn't do and are making me out to be a monster, and if I stop people will automatically believe I'm not a monster." Or do they harden their resolve and double-down. Human nature seems to be the latter.
Regardless of what Elon Musk thinks, what do you think are the potential outcomes of everything that is going on with Elon Musk?
- Someone assassinates him, and Donald Trump isn't happy (what do you think he would do).
- He leaves the political / government scene, and people still think he is a monster no matter what he does or where he goes.
- He continues to see to it that he accomplishes what he believes.
This is a huge change. These kinds of boycotts and protests usually barely impact sales. The Bud Light boycott had a relatively strong impact on sales, resulting in a 26% decrease in in-store sales in the US. The effect on Tesla seems to be way bigger, and it's not limited to only US sales.
Another prominent example of a global boycott is Nike during the 1990s, but despite the widespread coverage, their revenue actually continued to grow.
Boycott is not the same a burning cars. The sales of the car I own are going down in general, but the only way it affects me is that I know the software bug won't be fixed.
Hopefully they can keep things in perspective and direct their frustrations at the CEO who became a facist and not the millions suffering who want to oppose him.
It's not, if you realize they started the quarter with almost no inventory (12 days in end of December, which is nothing for an OEM with no dealership).
More importantly, they shut down the production lines for the Y model to convert them to the new 2025 Juniper version. That's 2/3 of their total sales.
You can't sell cars you have no produced, obviously. It's April-May that you have to watch for deliveries, now that they finally started shipping the new Y out of Texas.
A 35% change in one month, when the production lines are being retooled for a new version of the most popular model… is nothing special. Because it was planned and couldn't be managed differently (except by stuffing inventories, which is stupid when you annonce a new model). This can easily be compensated with raising sales of the most popular vehicle being sold globally. That what's the Chinese market is proving already with ~130,000 units to be sold this quarter (same as last year).
