Out of curiosity, do you know anyone on the political right who feels that way?
It's quite possible to win a market with 30-50% of people liking you. Any if right wing customers buy Teslas for political reasons rather than utility they could reduce quality and increase pricing do even better financially.
The fascinating thing is that the political right largely prefers ICE vehicles in the USA. This is a combination of factors, like more rural voters who need more range/work more blue collar jobs/haul firewood/etc. Combined with a personality type that is more cautious about change. And also, the insane prices for things like Teslas here. Perhaps Musk's close association with President Trump will gain him a small number of new rich fans on the political right, but most common Americans in most of the country aren't even considering a Tesla to begin with, and it's the majority of folks with lower incomes that put Trump back in office this time.
The political right in Europe is not the same as the political right in the US. I am myself on the right side of the political spectrum and I despise Trump and more recently Musk. You can probably still find people that don't care, but they are going to be far, far fewer than 30%. Owning a Tesla has become something people apologise for.
> And have other EV makers seen more success or have they all had declines?
Others have seen big increases.
> Tesla almost 60% fewer cars in Germany in January than in the year-earlier period... The overall segment of battery-electric vehicles, where Tesla is competing, however, gained popularity in January, with sales up 53.5% at almost 34,500 vehicles across all brands.
> A total of 405 new Teslas were registered in Sweden last month, down 44% from January 2024, while registrations in Norway fell to 689, a decline of 38% over the same period, despite soaring overall demand for cars in the two countries.
I tried to find individual manufacturer numbers but couldn't. I did find this:
> Global sales of fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids (PHEV) rose 17.7% year on year to 1.3 million in January, the third consecutive month of slowing growth, the Rho Motion data showed.
> Europe reported sales of 0.25 million, up 21% from the same month of 2024.
It's wild how different experiences can be. I've had some shitboxes in my day. One car had an air intake that would fall off, so you'd occasionally have to keep the RPMs above 2k or it would stall. One car was a 1970s Russian van held together with duct tape and prayers. The door fell off while driving one day, so I wired it back on with roadside scrap and kept going.
The newish old model 3 I had for a few weeks during a backordered warranty repair was worse than either of them. The charging cable would get stuck. Sometimes the doors wouldn't open and I'd have to reboot the car. The headliner glue failed and dumped the roof on my head. You couldn't see through the rear window if it was raining too hard. Sentry mode would take 8-10% of the battery overnight. Many features simply didn't work without the cellular plan.
If there's too much rain, the water sheets off the low slope and makes it impossible to see. It needed fairly heavy rain for this to happen, but not so much that I felt uncomfortable driving (sans rear visibility issue).
The quality doesn't matter if consumers aren't willing to step into the showroom. YoY sales are cratering, down 50% (!!!) in Europe. That's catastrophic for a "quality product".
The parent specified in Europe. It's a fact that in January 2025, European Tesla sales have had significant YoY declines, attributed to Musk's political activity. A greater than 50% drop in sales in France and Germany, for example.
