On 19 May 2022 at 13:17, Willie via EV wrote: > I find it impossible to believe we would be where we are now without > Tesla and Musk. That is why I am so bumfuzzled by negativism toward > both.
Hmm, I thought I'd answered that in past posts. Sorry if it wasn't clear. I'll try again, and I hope that others will have some thoughts too. I'm not a researcher, but I suspect that the negativity toward Tesla EVs themselves results in large part from their over-sold autopilot. Some owners believe Musk when he says the car is self-driving, so they do stupid stuff and get into wrecks. Tesla being the new kid in town, and high profile, the news media are all over it, so everybody hears about it. Reliability problems may also be a factor. Consumer Reports says that the Model X was dead last for reliability in their 2021 survey. :-( --- The negativity toward Musk is also easy to explain. He's a truly despicable person, arguably a sociopath. He has no filters, and he acts out in public like a sixth grade class clown demanding attention. Several years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that she admired the Tesla S but couldn't afford one. Recently she was talking about getting a new (or newer) car and I asked if she was considering buying a Model 3. "From THAT man? Oh, *GOD* no. No, no, no." I see similar reactions all over the web. There are thousands of people who'd love to have a Tesla, if they didn't have to give some of their money to Musk to get it. Those are anecdotes, and as any statistician will tell you, the plural of anecdote is not data. So here's some data for you. A recent survey found that only 25% of Democrats thought Tesla was trustworthy as a company. The trust level from Republicans, who aren't known as big EV buyers, was actually HIGHER at 27%. The main point here is the percentage, not the politics. I remember the raised eyebrows some years back when a survey found that only 43% of Americans had a positive impression of the US automakers as a group. And now we have ~26% trust for Tesla. Yikes. But Tesla sales keep rising! I'd argue that that's *despite* Musk's and Tesla's negative images. I'm pretty sure that it's not because of them. Tesla DOES make really good EVs. You can tell, because their owners seem to love them despite their reliability problems, and autopilot's attempts to murder them. Also, here in the US, the other automakers aren't really trying, so the competition is feeble. FWIW, in Europe, where other automakers ARE trying, VW is hot on Tesla's heels in sales. They were less than 1% behind them for 2021. If you count Skoda EV sales, VW bested Tesla by 26%. It will be very interesting to see how 2022 shakes out there. Sorry, I've wandered off topic here. My point is that there's no mystery at all about the negative attitudes toward Tesla and Elon Musk. They're caused by Tesla and Elon Musk. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race. -- Bertrand Russell, "Education and the Social Order" = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
