Anecdotal, but this is absolutely the case for me. The widely reported fit-and-finish issues would have made me hesitant regardless, but as long as it's Elon's company I will not be buying a Tesla regardless of improvements in quality. Bought a Prius plug-in hybrid instead (which I'm very happy with).

Prior to Elon taking the mask off I was really excited about the idea of getting a Tesla, and I'm squarely in what I imagine must be the main target demographic.

That is fine, but you are basically driving a flip phone when you could be driving an iphone. The Prius driving experience and technology are not good.

The Prius driving experience is excellent. I’ve had two gen 3 prii (one a plug in) for 10 & 6 years respectively and can’t find anything to dislike apart from the lack of acceleration above 45mph. Regular cruise control, buttons for everything, excellent economy, zero road tax, huge cargo capacity for a family car.

I kind of like my flip phone thank you very much.

You do you!

It has served me just fine getting up and down the mountains in the Vermont winter with snow tires, so I don’t really have anything to complain about. I have also had zero maintenance issues with it so far. The electric mode has great torque, especially with power driving mode turned on.

I saw a bumper sticker on one: “I bought this before Elon went crazy”.

It’s not great when your customers are embarrassed to be seen driving the car you made.

I shared this in my other comment, but there is some support for that notion: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/would-...

great article. i have a tesla -- it is a great car. i regret that elon is such an awful person and i will definitely look elsewhere before buying another.

at least as long as he's involved.

Tesla should be absolutely terrified of this. I think lots of us would love to like Elon, but the man is such a disgrace that we are actively disincentivised to root for his success.

I went from assuming that a Tesla would be my next car to assuming that an EV that's not a Tesla will be my next car. All because of Musk.

I really hope it will support stalks soon or have turn indicators actually placed on left+right.

I am shopping for an EV right now. I absolutely refuse to look at Teslas. So there is some effect of unknown size, and in hard times that added effect can push things over an edge.

Or the reality that there is lot more options so people gravitate towards them. And brand loyalty might also be a thing, of which there is lot for also other brands.

The technological gap is tightening, Tesla was alone before, the same way that Nvidia is "alone" for now.

Tesla still has some advance in terms of autopilot (in the US), but for all other things, it's an electric car with a great software but a rather low-quality hardware finish if to compare with other brands like Mercedes.

> The technological gap is tightening, Tesla was alone before, the same way that Nvidia is "alone" for now.

It's worse than that. Nvidia has a moat (deployed software and the open source software ecosystem) that buys them at least a few years, even if a well-resourced hardware peer appeared out of thin air tomorrow. Tesla has nothing like this. The cost of switching away from them is negligible, and they have half a dozen extremely well-resourced competitors.

It also has much better range than the Mercedes, accelerates faster, costs nearly half as much, and can use Superchargers. I can forgive the slightly less fancy "finish" for all that.

When Tesla gets tight for money they raise the Supercharger price to more than gas, it happened once around 2018 during a cash crunch.

I rarely use it (the vast majority of Tesla owners charge at home), but when I do, I appreciate the fact that it's there, even if the price is higher. It's still cheaper than gas. I actually think that's kind of the idea. One or two long road trips per year become possible. With most other EVs they're a dicey proposition still.

Yeah I think they lowered it back after a backlash and an improvement in their financial situation.

very few people outside the permanently online care about this

Perhaps! That leads to a question actually: I wonder how many people know that Musk intentionally reinstated accounts for literal neo nazis, and very obviously has personal knowledge of Andrew Anglin being on the service? I suspect most people do not know, because getting caught providing material support for nazism would destroy a normal person's reputation.

The 2016 election changed the calculus. Supporting white supremacists is no longer a deal-breaker.

It seems to me this is heavily related to Elon being a vocal Republican.

I wonder if people would care as much if he was a quiet Republican?

I don't think it's so much because he is Republican. It's what he says that matters.

Promoting great replacement theory is very different than vocal Republican. He only said the Republican persecution thing after he was informed the horse for handjob scandal was going to be reported: they emailed him for comment and he immediately made the post.

> Promoting great replacement theory is very different than vocal Republican

They used to be very different. Today, not so much.