People started throwing paint on fur coats, and then fur coats became less popular because nobody likes having to constantly clean paint off their stuff.
I remember an old Jalopnik (maybe Gawker?) article from a decade ago that called this man a Bond villain when everyone else was swooning over him.
Add me to the growing list of former Tesla owners. After many months, the stars and math finally lined up for me two weeks ago and I was able to break even on my trade-in and went with a Mustang Mach E. (Yea yea, I know Ford's checkered history there too... 😬😅).
It's bad enough his actions take over most of the internet; I couldn't stomach the daily reminder of how toxic the CEO and brand are.
A couple of my friends went with Rivian, and others plan to offload their Teslas soon. Baby steps I guess ✊🏽.
Yea, I was still on the Kool-Aid in early 2021 and the charging network is what sold me.
The Mach E is a joy to drive and makes the Model 3 feel like it's going to fall apart. Love Carplay but the range takes a bigger hit in Chicago winter than I expected, I guess due to lack of heat pump. At least the range on the dash is more 'honest' than Tesla's ever was lol.
Yes, it does lose a lot in cold weather. I thought I heard the 2025's were going to have a heat pump. I really love it though. Ford just sent me an adapter so I can plug into the Tesla charging stations, which I will use only if I'm travelling and desperate to find a charger.
This. Absolutely love my 2022 Mach-e. We've done many road trips, and I've personally done many volunteer fugitive uterus trips helping women in reproductive slavery states get to free states for abortion care. Never had range anxiety freak out until we took a road trip through New England in February. I have the free adaptor Ford gave me to use at Tesla chargers (spit), but won't use it unless it is life or death scenario. Ford is (I think) adding the heat pump to newer models, so hope that will help in sub-zero temps. Not a problem for normal driving, but a disaster for longer road trips.
I've had my eye on the Ioniq since I got to drive one that my wife's friend brought to a vacation. That or Rivian, whatever is economical and can hold two growing boys and all their shit.
The Ioniq 5 was my first choice when I was shopping around last month. When I saw Ford was offering 0% financing to clear out the 2024s along with a bunch of incentives like "Tesla Conquest" it was too good to pass up to finally be rid of the Model 3.
Biggest drawback is the huge hit it takes in Midwest winters, but the Ioniqs seem to handle that way better thanks to the heat pump. But as a solo driver, I can adjust.
Well electric cars were normal 110 years ago before the oil industry grew to kill it all off and set us back a century. So just doing my part to help round 2 of EVs stick around.
Plus I have solar panels and pay less to power my home and car each month than most people spend on a typical weekly gas fill up.
Rubbish, electric vehicles were garbage then and they still are except for very limited use cases. Batteries are still incredibly expensive and inefficient ways to power a vehicle
Good article. In addition to the EXTREMELY high price earnings multiplier of 166, Tesla is mostly a manufacturing company. Car sales and leasing is 74% of Tesla's gross income. The profit from car sales (before general and administrative costs) was 18.4% in 2024, call it 20%+/-. This is down from a peak of 25.6% in December 2022. Outside of China, they make about $9,500 in profit per car sold (inside China they lose money on every car sold). They have a lot of fixed costs as a manufacturer, meaning if sales drop, expenses don't drop as much. If tesla sales outside China drop 5% due do Musk's public persona, gross car sales profit drops by about 16-20%. A 10% drop in sales is a 30% to 40% drop in gross profits. These are huge numbers that Wall Street investors can not ignore. Elon fan boy speculators can ignore them, but the bulk of Tesla is held by large funds. One of the professional tesla analysts predicts tesla car sales in the 1st Q of 2025 will be 370,000 world wide, a 4.3% drop from 1st Q 2024. But he also writes that the wall street analyst consensus for 1st Q 2025 is 422,000 cars. A number they are VERY unlikely to hit. Full numbers will not be available from Tesla until start of April, when they release earnings. Many tesla buyers in the US are wealthy suburbanites. Those folks HATE conflict. Let's do all we can to make them uncomfortable about buying a tesla.
Such good information, Steve. We will all become Tesla experts. Informed adversaries. Do you have any information on how much debt Tesla has for the Shanghai factory? This could be a vulnerability as well.
Tesla took out loans from Chinese banks to finance the construction of its Gigafactory in Shanghai, China. The loans were used to pay for construction and production at the factory, as well as to repay existing debt. Tesla paid off the loans early, using profits from the factory.
Loan details
Loan amount: $1.4 billion
Lenders: China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank
Interest rate: 90% of China's one-year benchmark interest rate
Terrific information, Hamilton. We can do this. Just one small correction, for those who might not want to protest at Tesla out of concern for hurting a local dealership. Tesla has "stores and galleries" -- 100% Tesla owned. Tesla does this by design to not dilute their profit on each vehicle. Sharing the bounty is not in Tesla's DNA. Now, let's go get 'em.
As Malcolm Cowley observed, modern capitalism is a capitalism of consumption. It is as vulnerable at the point of consumption as it is at the point of production. The great thing about boycotts is that you are not asking people to do something, you’re asking them not to do something. In this case, there are alternatives to Tesla that are cheaper and get as good or even better ratings. (Hyundai Ioniq) Tesla sales in Europe have plummeted since Musk went full Nazi. If domestic sales continue to decline, investors will flee.
I just saw a fleeting headline that Tesla shares price has plummeted and Murk has lost 100 Bn. Quite a signal if true. O K, so who's next? Amazon? Just as a show of solidarity muscle is reason enough. Good enough for Mitch McConnell.
If you had said that modern capitalism is about government capture or exploiting disasters, they would sound just as true.
Yanis Varoufakis speaking with Richard Wolff recently pointed out that these vehicles are cloud connected at all times, monitored by Tesla, and can be remotely disabled by Tesla. Well then, I do not condone this, but hackers may be able to make these cars exceptionally undesirable for purchase?
I have my doubts that's true...especially considering the 'source'...they may be and probably ARE trackable but I doubt there is any mechanism that could actually DISABLE one remotely...Who would BUY something like that?
I COULD be wrong, buteven with my limited understanding of this, that doesn't quite scan..
Now if it IS true...THAT would be the message to send to all Tesla owners and people considering buy one
Varoufakis claimed that people trying to get Teslas serviced outside of Tesla service centers reported their cars being disabled. I cannot verify this, and it seems somewhat apocryphal even to me, but Mr Varoufakis did state this. These incidents may have been random and not something pernicious on the part of Tesla. I will say that I readily admit I don't know the context. I do know others have reported being locked out of their own cars, and stating Tesla locked them out. This could of course be anti-theft protection, so again I don't know, but this also suggests remote "control" of the vehicles to some extent.
The more the better. The man is intentionally directly harming the lives of countless (millions) of people daily and will continue to do so as long as he can. He is a singular threat to humanity operating within an already punitive, entirely corrupt and callous system. I have a very hard time being upset at anything which will harm him.
Woman 2: Can I share an intrusive thought that I had while walking into this party? I don’t often get intrusive thoughts.
Everyone: Yes please share
Woman 2: I saw your cybertruck and I kept having this intrusive thought… I really wanted… to key it.
Cybertruck owner guy: Oh my god, I know. My main cybertruck is in the shop, so the one I have right now is a loaner, but my main one is covered in stickers about how much Elon sucks. [confiding tone] In fact I actually cut off my personal relationship with Elon three months ago. … But yeah my main cybertruck is covered in anti-Elon stickers
As I wrote in my post, Trump’s Legal Pathway to Dictator, "A selfish Musk sucked up to a selfish asshole to further feather his own bed. How fitting it would be if Musk’s greed and selfishness turned Tesla into a pariah brand, with an image as ugly as his Cybertruck, shunned by all, even the MAGA crowd."
“Some cybertruck owners have told reporters that they no longer want to own cybertrucks after these incidents. I would never condone illegal vandalism as a protest tactic. But as a keen observer of social trends, I observe that these types of actions often spread and become more frequent when large numbers of people view them as effective ways to achieve a goal.”
This is the way. This is useful, effective, and — relatively — peaceful protest. One wonders what types of security all those Tesla dealerships, Trump buildings, and Amazon stores and distribution centers have. As the Russians and Republicans showed us during the last election, you don’t even have to plant a bomb for the calling in a threat of one to cause significant disruption.
How much of that stock prop-up is institutional investors sucking up to Musk? Especially now that he's a large chunk of the Executive Branch? I like the idea of closing off the consumer avenue, but Elon will just promise some new bullshit (driverless cabs, etc.) to keep the money flowing.
In my view (YMMV) the two biggest threats to Elon's wealth are a) Trump or the courts defenestrating him and DOGE out of the government and/or b) a big institutional investor Asking Questions about how much he's actually contributing to Tesla's success with all this other stuff going on, and cashing out, which starts a chain reaction.
I'm confident that if Americans had the will and bravery that Ukrainians have shown, they could determine when newly built Teslas or other parts and components for Tesla and SpaceX are arriving at ports on the West Coast. Protests that disrupt those shipments disrupt global operations for both Tesla and SpaceX. Going to your local Tesla dealership with a protest sign is small ball. We all need to think much bigger.
The people who wanted to own Tesla's before Musk showed his true colors were people who wanted electric vehicles -- a group which trends liberal. Conservatives, i.e., Trump fans, would ridicule electric cars and liked Trump's promise to lower gas prices. So if Musk makes Tesla an anathema to liberals, and conservatives still want their big-ol' Dodges and Effies, who is going to buy a Tesla?
Today Toyota stock is 172. Tesla stock is 302. down from the other day about 20 cents. Why can’t people who have shares in Tesla that aren’t short selling buy Toyota. They are so close it’s like a BOGO. 1 Tesla =2 Toyota which is going up and Tesla, which is going down and probably will continue to, but wouldn’t take as much time for it to impact Musk if people sold off shares they owned outright I don’t know if I even understand what I’m saying except sell off Tesla if you are able and get 2 shares of Toyota. So please ex
People started throwing paint on fur coats, and then fur coats became less popular because nobody likes having to constantly clean paint off their stuff.
I remember an old Jalopnik (maybe Gawker?) article from a decade ago that called this man a Bond villain when everyone else was swooning over him.
Add me to the growing list of former Tesla owners. After many months, the stars and math finally lined up for me two weeks ago and I was able to break even on my trade-in and went with a Mustang Mach E. (Yea yea, I know Ford's checkered history there too... 😬😅).
It's bad enough his actions take over most of the internet; I couldn't stomach the daily reminder of how toxic the CEO and brand are.
A couple of my friends went with Rivian, and others plan to offload their Teslas soon. Baby steps I guess ✊🏽.
I've had the Mach-e for 3 1/2 years and no complaints. I don't know what people saw in Teslas even if Musk was not a Nazi.
Yea, I was still on the Kool-Aid in early 2021 and the charging network is what sold me.
The Mach E is a joy to drive and makes the Model 3 feel like it's going to fall apart. Love Carplay but the range takes a bigger hit in Chicago winter than I expected, I guess due to lack of heat pump. At least the range on the dash is more 'honest' than Tesla's ever was lol.
Yes, it does lose a lot in cold weather. I thought I heard the 2025's were going to have a heat pump. I really love it though. Ford just sent me an adapter so I can plug into the Tesla charging stations, which I will use only if I'm travelling and desperate to find a charger.
This. Absolutely love my 2022 Mach-e. We've done many road trips, and I've personally done many volunteer fugitive uterus trips helping women in reproductive slavery states get to free states for abortion care. Never had range anxiety freak out until we took a road trip through New England in February. I have the free adaptor Ford gave me to use at Tesla chargers (spit), but won't use it unless it is life or death scenario. Ford is (I think) adding the heat pump to newer models, so hope that will help in sub-zero temps. Not a problem for normal driving, but a disaster for longer road trips.
i just don't want a door without normal handles on it
I've had my eye on the Ioniq since I got to drive one that my wife's friend brought to a vacation. That or Rivian, whatever is economical and can hold two growing boys and all their shit.
The Ioniq 5 was my first choice when I was shopping around last month. When I saw Ford was offering 0% financing to clear out the 2024s along with a bunch of incentives like "Tesla Conquest" it was too good to pass up to finally be rid of the Model 3.
Biggest drawback is the huge hit it takes in Midwest winters, but the Ioniqs seem to handle that way better thanks to the heat pump. But as a solo driver, I can adjust.
It is a great car. Husb has it, and I have KiaEV6 which I personally think is better looking 😁
Family member got an iOniq 5; really happy with it.
My nephew has a Mach E and loves it. His ex has a Kia ev9 and loves that as well. Lots of options out there now.
Maybe buy normal cars?
Well electric cars were normal 110 years ago before the oil industry grew to kill it all off and set us back a century. So just doing my part to help round 2 of EVs stick around.
Plus I have solar panels and pay less to power my home and car each month than most people spend on a typical weekly gas fill up.
I didn't mean don't buy EVs I just meant don't buy ones that are weirdo cult/status signifiers like Tesla and Rivian
Rubbish, electric vehicles were garbage then and they still are except for very limited use cases. Batteries are still incredibly expensive and inefficient ways to power a vehicle
All EVs are horrible but congrats for getting out of the cult! 😁
Good article. In addition to the EXTREMELY high price earnings multiplier of 166, Tesla is mostly a manufacturing company. Car sales and leasing is 74% of Tesla's gross income. The profit from car sales (before general and administrative costs) was 18.4% in 2024, call it 20%+/-. This is down from a peak of 25.6% in December 2022. Outside of China, they make about $9,500 in profit per car sold (inside China they lose money on every car sold). They have a lot of fixed costs as a manufacturer, meaning if sales drop, expenses don't drop as much. If tesla sales outside China drop 5% due do Musk's public persona, gross car sales profit drops by about 16-20%. A 10% drop in sales is a 30% to 40% drop in gross profits. These are huge numbers that Wall Street investors can not ignore. Elon fan boy speculators can ignore them, but the bulk of Tesla is held by large funds. One of the professional tesla analysts predicts tesla car sales in the 1st Q of 2025 will be 370,000 world wide, a 4.3% drop from 1st Q 2024. But he also writes that the wall street analyst consensus for 1st Q 2025 is 422,000 cars. A number they are VERY unlikely to hit. Full numbers will not be available from Tesla until start of April, when they release earnings. Many tesla buyers in the US are wealthy suburbanites. Those folks HATE conflict. Let's do all we can to make them uncomfortable about buying a tesla.
Such good information, Steve. We will all become Tesla experts. Informed adversaries. Do you have any information on how much debt Tesla has for the Shanghai factory? This could be a vulnerability as well.
Google reports the debt has been paid off:
Tesla took out loans from Chinese banks to finance the construction of its Gigafactory in Shanghai, China. The loans were used to pay for construction and production at the factory, as well as to repay existing debt. Tesla paid off the loans early, using profits from the factory.
Loan details
Loan amount: $1.4 billion
Lenders: China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank
Interest rate: 90% of China's one-year benchmark interest rate
Loan term: Five years
Payment: Tesla paid off the loan in 16 months
how about all of us who have mututal funds, make sure that Tesla stock is NOT part of any funds we participate in. WIll that work?
And ETFs as well.
Yes! I just realized I had Tesla stock in my managed IRA and called them immediately. That was an easy call to make.
Terrific information, Hamilton. We can do this. Just one small correction, for those who might not want to protest at Tesla out of concern for hurting a local dealership. Tesla has "stores and galleries" -- 100% Tesla owned. Tesla does this by design to not dilute their profit on each vehicle. Sharing the bounty is not in Tesla's DNA. Now, let's go get 'em.
No one should care about protesting a local car dealer. Those people are the scum of the earth and the social base of fascism in this country
Lol seriously. Car dealerships and their owners are pure scumbags. 100% of the time. Their entire business model is predatory and should be abolished
As Malcolm Cowley observed, modern capitalism is a capitalism of consumption. It is as vulnerable at the point of consumption as it is at the point of production. The great thing about boycotts is that you are not asking people to do something, you’re asking them not to do something. In this case, there are alternatives to Tesla that are cheaper and get as good or even better ratings. (Hyundai Ioniq) Tesla sales in Europe have plummeted since Musk went full Nazi. If domestic sales continue to decline, investors will flee.
I just saw a fleeting headline that Tesla shares price has plummeted and Murk has lost 100 Bn. Quite a signal if true. O K, so who's next? Amazon? Just as a show of solidarity muscle is reason enough. Good enough for Mitch McConnell.
If you had said that modern capitalism is about government capture or exploiting disasters, they would sound just as true.
Yanis Varoufakis speaking with Richard Wolff recently pointed out that these vehicles are cloud connected at all times, monitored by Tesla, and can be remotely disabled by Tesla. Well then, I do not condone this, but hackers may be able to make these cars exceptionally undesirable for purchase?
I have my doubts that's true...especially considering the 'source'...they may be and probably ARE trackable but I doubt there is any mechanism that could actually DISABLE one remotely...Who would BUY something like that?
I COULD be wrong, buteven with my limited understanding of this, that doesn't quite scan..
Now if it IS true...THAT would be the message to send to all Tesla owners and people considering buy one
Varoufakis claimed that people trying to get Teslas serviced outside of Tesla service centers reported their cars being disabled. I cannot verify this, and it seems somewhat apocryphal even to me, but Mr Varoufakis did state this. These incidents may have been random and not something pernicious on the part of Tesla. I will say that I readily admit I don't know the context. I do know others have reported being locked out of their own cars, and stating Tesla locked them out. This could of course be anti-theft protection, so again I don't know, but this also suggests remote "control" of the vehicles to some extent.
even if not true! SPREAD THE WORD!
I've read accounts of Teslas getting bricked, ransomwared and all sorts of things
The more the better. The man is intentionally directly harming the lives of countless (millions) of people daily and will continue to do so as long as he can. He is a singular threat to humanity operating within an already punitive, entirely corrupt and callous system. I have a very hard time being upset at anything which will harm him.
An actual conversation I observed in SF at a party, three days ago:
Guy: [talks about his cybertruck in a tone that indicates he knows he’s talking about something naughty, then he says:] …so, do you want to see it?
Woman 1: Omg. [guilty shocked fascinated tone] YES
Woman 2: Can I share an intrusive thought that I had while walking into this party? I don’t often get intrusive thoughts.
Everyone: Yes please share
Woman 2: I saw your cybertruck and I kept having this intrusive thought… I really wanted… to key it.
Cybertruck owner guy: Oh my god, I know. My main cybertruck is in the shop, so the one I have right now is a loaner, but my main one is covered in stickers about how much Elon sucks. [confiding tone] In fact I actually cut off my personal relationship with Elon three months ago. … But yeah my main cybertruck is covered in anti-Elon stickers
Intrusive thought... why the fuck didn't she just key it?
As I wrote in my post, Trump’s Legal Pathway to Dictator, "A selfish Musk sucked up to a selfish asshole to further feather his own bed. How fitting it would be if Musk’s greed and selfishness turned Tesla into a pariah brand, with an image as ugly as his Cybertruck, shunned by all, even the MAGA crowd."
Love this:
“Some cybertruck owners have told reporters that they no longer want to own cybertrucks after these incidents. I would never condone illegal vandalism as a protest tactic. But as a keen observer of social trends, I observe that these types of actions often spread and become more frequent when large numbers of people view them as effective ways to achieve a goal.”
This is the way. This is useful, effective, and — relatively — peaceful protest. One wonders what types of security all those Tesla dealerships, Trump buildings, and Amazon stores and distribution centers have. As the Russians and Republicans showed us during the last election, you don’t even have to plant a bomb for the calling in a threat of one to cause significant disruption.
How much of that stock prop-up is institutional investors sucking up to Musk? Especially now that he's a large chunk of the Executive Branch? I like the idea of closing off the consumer avenue, but Elon will just promise some new bullshit (driverless cabs, etc.) to keep the money flowing.
In my view (YMMV) the two biggest threats to Elon's wealth are a) Trump or the courts defenestrating him and DOGE out of the government and/or b) a big institutional investor Asking Questions about how much he's actually contributing to Tesla's success with all this other stuff going on, and cashing out, which starts a chain reaction.
It has had this absurd valuation for years though. Because, apparently, he claimed to have special ‘proprietary technology.’
Musk did not “start the company”, he is not a founder of Tesla. He invested and muscled in later on.
I'm confident that if Americans had the will and bravery that Ukrainians have shown, they could determine when newly built Teslas or other parts and components for Tesla and SpaceX are arriving at ports on the West Coast. Protests that disrupt those shipments disrupt global operations for both Tesla and SpaceX. Going to your local Tesla dealership with a protest sign is small ball. We all need to think much bigger.
The people who wanted to own Tesla's before Musk showed his true colors were people who wanted electric vehicles -- a group which trends liberal. Conservatives, i.e., Trump fans, would ridicule electric cars and liked Trump's promise to lower gas prices. So if Musk makes Tesla an anathema to liberals, and conservatives still want their big-ol' Dodges and Effies, who is going to buy a Tesla?
Today Toyota stock is 172. Tesla stock is 302. down from the other day about 20 cents. Why can’t people who have shares in Tesla that aren’t short selling buy Toyota. They are so close it’s like a BOGO. 1 Tesla =2 Toyota which is going up and Tesla, which is going down and probably will continue to, but wouldn’t take as much time for it to impact Musk if people sold off shares they owned outright I don’t know if I even understand what I’m saying except sell off Tesla if you are able and get 2 shares of Toyota. So please ex