I think it should be the opposite. If you buy a cheap thing and suddenly start feeling uncomfortable using it in public, you can just buy another cheap thing. With expensive things, you want to play it safe, because replacing it will be expensive if you start having second thoughts.

99% of eligible buyers don’t care one way or another. As big as it may seem to you, the US neoliberal bubble is not really that large. That’s why Tesla sold 1.81M cars last year. It is a formidable number no matter how you look at it.

Step 1 is to stop buying things (or not) because you care how it will make you look to other people who don’t actually care.

I don’t have a Tesla, but if someone is going to judge me based on the assumed political views of the CEO of the car brand I happen to drive… they need to get a life.

Does the company make a good car? That’s the only thing that actually matters.

> Step 1 is to stop buying things (or not) because you care how it will make you look to other people who don’t actually care

Car OEMs invest millions in branding on the basis of/to promote the opposite of what you're saying: the brand is an expression or an extension of the buyers identity.

That’s what marketing is, but as individuals we should seek to understand the goal of marketing so we don’t blindly fall for it. It’s not real.

As the old saying goes… we spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t care about.

We can choose to not do that, and the marketing department can go to hell.

Regardless of how true your point is, millions of 20-something year old men exist in the market that haven't yet, or never will, reach your state of capitalism nirvana.

So your assumption justifies judging Tesla owners? Doesn't seem very enlightened of you either

Did you mean to reply to me? I didn't claim it was or wasn't okay, or that I was enlightened. I am merely pointing out that one person's journey to separating themselves from being concerned with vanity and status of their vehicle doesn't remove the large population of people predisposed to behave otherwise.

Personally, I stopped fighting this particular battle. I've come to the realization that intangibles matter - some of those might be incidental, some pure personal preferences, some result of me being manipulated by marketing.

But separating which is which is not always easy, and I'd rather spend my time on other things. As a result I take "intangibles" as a rational factor in buying decisions even if the intangibles themselves might not necessarily be rational.

An expensive car is also a status symbol. But when the brand is inseparable from Elon's shitposting, it's not something to brag about any more.

I think the number of Uber drivers with Teslas makes it seem like less of a status symbol.

A Model 3 or Y isn’t a flex. They start around $30k, which isn’t exactly luxury pricing. Making cars people can afford is a good thing, but once that happens, it stops being a status symbol.

It may not be a flex, but having an electric car is still a statement (less than it used to be, but still) that you're a high tech, forward thinking, environmentally conscious person. The problem is that now it's also a statement that you're a Trump supporter.

Those 2 assumptions are at odds with each other. The Trump supporters I know don’t want anything to do with electric cars, and Trump was the one fighting for coal to remain viable, which is the exact opposite of environmentally conscious.

Personally, I have never seen a Tesla and assumed the driver was a Trump supporter. The much bigger stereotype is that the left buys EVs.

I don’t think many people are trading in their Cummings diesel 2500 truck for anything electric. The die hard Trump fans would be on Truth Social, not Twitter. They might like some stuff Elon is doing, but I don’t think they are going to give up their gas engines over him.

It's less how they personally feel about the CEO, and more on the image they'll be projecting with their car choice.

Basically social signaling.

Depends on how good the alternatives are. HMC, BMW, etc have some great options.

tesla vehicles have a unique feature that every time elon tweets the resale value drops another 50 bucks

regardless of your politics, it's not a good thing

There's wanting a Tesla and ignoring Musk, but there's also "should we consider a Tesla?" answered by "No, I don't trust him and anything he's associated with." We didn't look at Tesla when we bought our EV two years ago. There were other reasons than just Musk's personality, but it was a definitely a factor in ignoring the brand.

(Expensive) cars are kind of a symbol of irrational decisions. Plenty of people buy cars they dreamed of even if it will ruin them financially. People buy the car for its look, its brand, freedom they feel. A strong association with an ideology you despise will kinda spoil those positive feelings you have, though.