6d ago

Elon Musk is turning US liberals off not just Tesla but electric vehicles in general

www.theguardian.com

Disgust at the CEO’s rightwing activism is casting a pall but conservatives are no more likely to buy EVs

US liberals have become so disgusted with Tesla since Elon Musk’s rightward turn that they are now not only far less likely to purchase the car brand but also less willing to buy any type of electric car, new research has found.

The popularity of Tesla among liberal-minded Americans has plummeted since Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and the world’s richest person, allied himself with Donald Trump and helped propel the president to election victory last year.

While liberals reported mostly positive intentions around buying an electric car in August 2023, their overall support for EVs eroded in the wake of a collapse in their opinion of Teslas, according to the new study, which polled Americans on an array of environmental actions.

73 comments

I think only extremely expensive luxury models being available is keeping Americans from buying EVs. Like where are the cheap, dependable small cars, like in other countries!?
- Seriously! Give me a Honda Fit sized electric hatchback that uses a modern charging standard (so not the Leaf).
  
  I have a Honda Fit and it is the best car I've ever owned. If Honda came up with a Fit EV (again), I would probably buy it right away.
  
  I'd love an electric fit at a reasonable price point
  
  Is this not the Chevy Bolt? Sure productions been on hiatus, but a late model used one is a pretty good price.
- " For now, BYD and other Chinese EVs are virtually locked out of the US market due to tariffs."
  
  And "safety concerns." Some are legit but in context, are probably safer than Teslas. The Chinese EV makers just need to buy more politicians.
- Yup. I hate Teslas, not EVs in general, but I also hate the pricing of them.
  
  Are you only considering buying new? A ‘23 Chevy Bolt from carvana is about $16k
- Biggest downside to me is the battery price.
Are you sure it's not that North American EVs are fucking awful and expensive? And that foreign ones have artificial restrictions to prop up the out-of-touch NA manufacturers?
- Yeah, the options for EV in the US are pretty horrible, and it's mainly because US manufacturers want to have their cake and eat it as well. They don't want to invest in EV manufacturing, which imo is fine. We shouldn't have to prod corporations into remaining relevant. However, they are also spending millions of dollars lobbying the government into protecting their market from competitors and into overturning climate initiatives.
  We won't ever see these corporations invest in EV until an outside player forces their hands. Amazing how quickly the faux love of Free market economics became a thing of the past the moment there's an actual threat of competition.
  Best case scenario imo is that America car manufacturers shit the bed so hard that Americans actually begin to start to care about public transportation. Trains are the most effective and efficient mode of transportation and always have been, ev are just a band-aid.
- Knowing charge infrastructure isn't expanding and won't be maintained doesn't help
They must have interviewed idiots
If US liberals can't see the difference between Tesla cars and any old EVs, fuck US liberals quite frankly.
But I doubt it. If anybody is killing EVs in the US, it's Donald "What Epstein files?" Trump.
- Or they finally realized electric cars only fix one minor problem cars create and reinforce?
  
  Whenever I get on the road I'm reminded that car emissions are not just one minor problem. Should there be more mass transit and remote work ? Yes. Is that ever going to happen in my area? Almost certainly not.
  
  I feel like this is closer to the real answer. A lot of the criticism of Tesla applies to other EVs as well. Elon tanking his credibility opened up a dialogue about how EVs in general are super inconvenient, destroy roads, and aren’t nearly as “green” as they seem. This coupled with the US automakers focusing on behemoths instead cheap commuters only amplified this.
  
  OK guy
  Edit: ITT: lots of opinions from people who haven't shopped for an EV recently. There are plenty of sedan (and smaller) models.
The theory put forth here doesn’t make a lot of sense. Are we sure left leaning people aren’t just becoming more anti-car in general?
For me, 5 years ago, buying an EV seemed like a great idea, albeit one I couldn’t really afford. But then I realized I could just reduce my driving by 90% and achieve the same benefit while saving money. So I don’t really need an EV anymore now that I barely ever drive.
- hell yeah, public transport is better than any car of any type, be it combustion or EVs.
- I own two "EVs." They're bicycles.
  
  Fuck yeah e-bikes are great.
I would love to have an electric vehicle. But first, I'd need to live somewhere with an appropriate power outlet near a reliable parking space.
I'm an apartment dweller that is lucky to find parking in front of my own home on Friday nights (when there are always more cars than usual.) I can only imagine how many people are in the same situation. Meanwhile, with the housing situation as it is, our ability to move to affordable houses (which could provide such power outlets) dwindles more every day. In this way, creating more affordable housing could lead more people to drive electric vehicles, simply by removing the barriers currently preventing them from doing so.
Hmmm. It's almost like multiple facets of society... intersect somehow. Like if we were to improve one aspect, it could have a ripple effect that benefits other parts. So weird, right? Who would'a thunk it.
- We're seeing that in England.
  There are commercial charging stations here and there in our neighborhood, but most people live in tarraced houses (in US terms, row houses) with unreserved resident's parking on the streets. Our house is at the end of the row and has a big enough back garden to include a parking space, but that's an exception. So now the council has offered to cut channels in the sidewalk from each house to the street so that charging cables can be run without impeding pedestrian access.
  It still doesn't solve the problem of being sure you can park in front of the house, but it's a step in the right direction.
EVs were always a distraction from our lack of public transportation.
Also, Tesla was redesigned after Musk bought it as a company to suck up green energy subidies to sell luxury cars at a premium instead of offering any real solutions.
Once again, this time everybody join in, "electric cars aren't here to save the planet they're here to save the car industry."
Electric vehicles don't really solve any of the problems that cars have. They just shift the resource and environmental problems into a different arena.
It seems to me that the most effective way of dealing with personal vehicles is to use renewable power to produce gasoline (Blue crude).
That way your gasoline is carbon neutral or even carbon negative until you burn it, can actually be kept sterile and separate and only mixed on demand so it doesn't go bad, and never has any sulfur in it because it's made from scratch.
It also means that all of the vehicles that currently exist can still be used which would dramatically reduce the amount of energy necessary to keep a functional fleet of vehicles and doesn't need everything to be replaced including the infrastructure.
Peaker plants could be built to soak up all of the extra renewable power when production is so much higher than demand so there's no need to worry about where you get the power to do this.
There are solutions out here but they require a kind of rearrangement of how we do business at almost every level.
- Electric cars are so much more efficient than gas cars that I can't see how "Blue Crude" could ever get even close in terms of emissions. Electric cars are so efficient that if you converted the size of their batteries to gallons of gas, most of them would have a tank smaller than 4 gallons. Why would we keep using such inefficient engines just to try and recapture that carbon out of the atmosphere when we could just never emit it in the first place?
Norway, where I live, have invested a lot in the charging infrastructure since 2010. In 2024 9/10 cars registered were electric.
This far into the year, and the amount of newly registered electric cars is 94,1%. Tesla is 17% of the sales, they're having a very good financing campaign on the new model Y. VW is second with 14%.
In countries where the infrastructure is good, a decent car with long range and is "cheap" is king.
Uh, no? I want an EV, though I want a small one that has a light touch on the environment. It's true that I don't want one that's from a Nazi wannabe, but I do want an EV that has decent range and can transport my wife and me for daily tasks. But maybe I don't catch the attention of US EV makers because I'd rather an e-bike than an E-SUV?
- The new Prius is surprisingly good looking in person. Though, if I was going EV and had the money, I like those Lucids.
Are they buying cargo bikes and lobbying for public transport improvements, or is this the stupidest timeline and we’re going to see liberals rolling coal in their diesel SUVs because fuck Elon?
He's also turning us off in general
I'm probably one of these. was thinking EV but now did a 180 and am going to get a big old gas or diesel truck off craigslist.
the upside is I drive maybe once a week and bike and scooter otherwise so my carbon impact will still be low. it's just to haul wood for woodworking or take my trailer to the campsite.
another upside by getting it used and fixing it up is reducing waste and avoiding a car payment. most EVs are still new enough you're unlikely to be able to buy them used cheaply. I can get a used usable truck for under 5 grand cash.
- I thought trucks were expensive because all the macho men want them and buy up the whole supply. The only truck I even owned was 27 years old for $1k and lasted like a year
Build trains and bike lanes.
Elon Musk is turning US liberals off not just Tesla but billionaires in general
FTFY
I'm still waiting for an EV minivan. And also ya know having the spare money which is a lot less under this admin because there's more uncertainty in everything and less regulation against exploitation.
- the ID Buzz is really interesting to me, but just doesn't have the range. Ofc it's pricey as well.
  
  The killer is that 60-70k price. Getting a similar hybrid is 40-50k and that extra 10-20k would take over a decade to reach break-even for me (about $75 in gas a month with the current conditions). Ofc I can buy used but used prices nowadays are insane.
I just want an electric pickup. Used Rivians are around $55k on Carvana. Used Mavericks are $25k.
- Slate looks interesting
  
  I don't think my heap is going to make it until product launch. ☹️
Ill buy an EV when they can make one that has a decent range but also doesnt weigh 4 tons and cost $80k. As someone still driving what used to be a normal sized car 20 years ago, these monstrosities need to go.
Weve solved the issue of ICE pollution and created a million other problems. More pollution from tire wear, more pollution from battery waste, more pollution from producing giant battery sleds. More pollution from having to repave roads more often due to all these EVs weighing as much as two ICE cars… makes an efficient ICE engine in a small car seem like way less of a problem by comparison, at least to me
- I just saw a post for a 2024 Honda Prologue EX EV with 1600 miles at a real car dealer for $25K.
  It's about harm reduction. Yes, heavy vehicles are hard on tires and suspension components. They also have no engine oil or power steering fluid, and much longer coolant change intervals. And, of course, no tailpipe emissions.
  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- For me a PHEV is the sweet spot at current tech levels. I use zero gasoline for my daily commute, but I can go on a long trip anytime I want without worrying about charging station availability.
  
  Yeah, we got a PHEV in 2022 and we love it. I do wish it had a bit more EV range, I end up with range anxiety driving to my in-laws’ in the next city over, but otherwise it’s fantastic.
- Once something like slate trucks catches on it might make a difference. A vehicle shouldn't cost more than your annual wages.
  
  I don't think Slate has a chance to hit that price point anymore. The Trump administration is cutting EV incentives and Slate has started changing their wording on the price. Now Slate lists it as "mid twenties". That's a lot to pay for a small vehicle with no features.
- Have you actually looked at the EV market, or is this informed by vibes? Most EVs are sedan sized and reasonably priced, especially compared to all the $100,000 trucks Americans love to buy.
  Hyundai makes excellent EVs.
- There are used chevy bolts for about $20k, they have around 300 mile range, they weigh around 3,500lbs.
  Virtually all road damage is from heavy trucks and plows. The weight of two ice cars is still practically nothing compared to those.
  Tires are a problem that need to be solved, microrubbers are going to be the leaded gas of our generation.
  
  EVs actually shed less tire and brake dust.
  https://ev.com/news/study-reveals-evs-produce-less-brake-and-tire-pollution-with-fewer-non-exhaust-emissions
  https://insideevs.com/news/767017/brake-dust-emissions-evs-better/
- I have a Chevy Bolt EUV, ~400km range, weighs 1.6 metric tons and cost 36K USD for a trim with most of the bells and whistles.
  I don't drive myself but my wife uses it for a 7 hr drive a couple times a year just fine.

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