Summary
A survey of 100,000 Germans found that 94% refuse to buy a Tesla, signaling a major crisis for the company.
Tesla’s German sales dropped 70% in early 2025 after a 41% decline in 2024, despite overall EV sales rising.
Analysts attribute the slump to CEO Elon Musk’s far-right political endorsements, including promoting the AfD party and making Nazi-related gestures. Musk is under European investigation for political meddling.
With Tesla’s reputation plummeting, industry experts predict further losses in Germany’s competitive EV market.
Sadly our car industry slept way too long on electric vehicles and instead doubled down on combustion engines, even by fraudulent practices (e.g. Dieselgate).
Teslas were by far the best EVs for a long time. Nowadays, not so much.
Were they though? Almost immediately after he stole the company from its founders/creators quality went down. But maybe there was enough residual quality to last him for a few years.
Anyhow, your point stands. Nowadays there’s plenty more to choose from and what then was innovative just isn’t anymore.
In terms of range, Tesla was the benchmark for a long time
Okay, Elon Musk is a giant asshole, but not so big that it warps reality around it. Musk provided money and became chairman of Tesla in Jan 2004. The first production vehicle rolled out in 2005. All Teslas were produced after Musk joined Tesla. And while it could be argued that he did a hostile takeover of Tesla, usually theft doesn’t include piles of cash going to the victim.
Thanks. I don’t get this need to lie about something to make a point.
He definitely made Tesla what it is today. Through that, he and the company single-handedly changed the automotive market forever, forcing other car brands to go EV.
The same is true for SpaceX - people who claim that he’s just some rich-kid CEO who has no idea of engineering and processes have no clue. Just ask the father of the Kestrel, Merlin and Raptor engines, Tom Mueller.
But anyway, it’s all moot now. Elon’s gone rogue, and he may or may not bring the western world down with him. Dystopia is on the horizon.
That is the thing. From the business and management side, yes he made them what they are today. He got the government to give absolutely massive subsidies, changed the company culture to be a 24/7 work grind with great pay (if you ignore salary-per-hour which most people do until they get burnes out). That got a ton of shit done very fast, with enough budget to be able to just test and test and test and not need to burn as much money on trying to get it right the first few times while also having state of the art assembly capabilities. That is no small feat and most startup companies can only hope to achieve that runway and engineering power.
People then extrapolate it to “he is some tech genius who built these companies and products and he was the main engineer behind it” No, he absolutely is not, he is a steve-jobs-esque role with decent tech literacy. He is no genius, sociopath who is extremely good at manipulation and getting what he wants, yes. He is closer to an Edison than a Tesla. In the executive world, decent tech literacy and willingness to learn makes you seem like a supergenius compared to all of the other MBA CEOs.
If you ask engineers in his company, since he went crazy and stopped being willing to listen and learn from his engineers, he has been an active detriment, engineering-wise, to the companies. He is not a genius. Just ask Tom Mueller
Your link doesn’t mention your statement anywhere.
But I also never said Musk is some kind of genius - don’t put words in my mouth.
Instead, this is the position I maintain.
I mean, it technically may be true, but that’s due to the complete lack of a viable competitor. Teslas are cheap, poorly made death traps. If you use auto pilot your basically being used as an unpaid crash test dummy. If you like being taken advantage of, then a Tesla is for you