▲ | HarHarVeryFunny 4 days ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Surely anyone who has bought a Tesla since he did start meddling in politics is a Republican. Before that, I'd assume it was mixed - I think people were buying because EVs were seen as futuristic, and there was non-partisan support for Musk when his main association was visionary rather than political/nutjob. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | r3trohack3r 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I suspect this is net good for the EV space at this point in history. Tesla was a virtue signal brand from day one[1]. Their core insight came from Palo Alto et. al. You’d drive through the suburbs and many driveways had two vehicles: a [insert gas guzzling luxury vehicle] and a Prius. One vehicle to signal wealth/status - the other to signal environmental consciousness. But the eco vehicle was a compromise; compared to the jaguar it sat next to, it was a clunker. Tesla’s GTM strategy was that you could buy a vehicle, without compromise, from them to signal to your social circles how much you cared about the environment. And it worked. They broke the oil cartels with a direct to consumer sales strategy and kicked off the EV market. But now that market’s needs are well met. The eco virtue signal crowd has multiple vendors selling decent products to meet their buying preferences. There is a fairly large untapped market though that won’t convert off of oil. That demographic overlaps well with the 2025 MAGA coalition. And, with Elon’s involvement in that coalition, Tesla EVs are now a new virtue signal for a new demographic. You have people buying EVs that were rolling coal as recently as 2 years ago. [1] The brand being built around eco virtue signaling is well documented in early interviews with original founders - a quick search will turn up many direct quotes talking about them driving through California suburbs doing market research and discovering exactly that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | kcb 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The vast majority don't require the CEO of a companies politics to match theirs when buying a vehicle. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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