Elon Musk's antics turn owners and potential buyers against Tesla

For much of the past decade, Tesla has had no match in its model battery range and other performance measures.

The trend has emerged in one consumer survey and market research report after another: Tesla commands high brand awareness, consideration and loyalty, and customers are mostly happy with its cars. Musk’s antics, on the other hand? They can do without.

Creative Strategies, a California-based customer experience gauge, cited owners’ frustration with Musk in a study published in April. A year earlier, research firm Escalent found Musk to be the most negative aspect of the Tesla brand among electric vehicle owners surveyed.

“We hear from Tesla owners who will say, ‘Look, I love my vehicle, but I really wish I didn’t have to respond to my friends and family about his latest tweet,’” said Mike Dovorany, who talks to thousands of Tesla users. EV owner and potential buyer for two years working in the automotive and mobility group Escalent.

Tesla has so far had no trouble thriving through Musk’s many controversies. The company’s reported drop in vehicle shipments in the last quarter was the first consecutive decline since early 2020 and was largely to do with the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai that forced its most productive factory to close for weeks. Competitors who have been chasing the company for a decade may still have years away from chasing EV sales ratings.

Musk’s star power, built in no small part by his activity on Twitter – the same forum where he became a lightning rod – has made a huge contribution to Tesla, especially because it shunned traditional advertising. Its steady stream of online banter, punctuated by the occasional grandiose announcement or stunt (see: shooting the Roadster into space) made Tesla headlines. During the company’s early days, comment trolling and glib were a feature, not a bug. They allowed Musk to shape media coverage and make him the leader of Tesla’s online legion of fans.

But after making Tesla and himself so synonymous with each other, Musk has waded into political conflict, trying to buy one of the world’s most influential social media platforms and struggling to contain unflattering coverage of his personal life, putting the company’s increasingly valuable brand at stake. .

Jerry James Stone, a 48-year-old chef in Sacramento, California, who teaches his 219,000 YouTube channel subscribers how to make vegan and vegetarian meals, drives a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and plans to use his next electric car. He wasn’t sure which model yet, but sure it wasn’t a Tesla.

“Elon just got the brand dirty for me so I don’t even think I’d take it if I won it,” Stone said. “You have this guy who is the richest man in the world, who has this big megaphone, and he uses it to refer to someone as a pedophile who is not, or for a very shameful person, all these rather disgusting things.”

Teslas from the table

According to Strategic Vision, a US research firm that consults with auto companies, about 39 percent of car buyers said they would not consider Tesla. That’s not always extraordinary – nearly half of respondents said they wouldn’t consider a German luxury brand. But Tesla does lag behind more mass-market brands: Toyota, for example, is only off the shopping list for 23 percent of drivers.

Emma Sirr, a 28-year-old cloud worker living in Bozeman, Montana, traveled with her partner and their two dogs in a 2004 Nissan Frontier. They had been researching EVs for about three years and until recently considered Tesla their only option. worth it, given their reach and the charging infrastructure the company has built in their region. But they refused to buy it because of Musk, their main gripe being his politics, staff turnover at the company and his snobbish approach to autonomous driving technology.

“We took Tesla off the table early on,” said Sirr. He and his partner are eyeing the Kia Niro and Chevrolet Bolt as possible alternatives. “As consumers, our strength is what we buy. I think the younger generation in particular are voting with their wallets, and I have a feeling it might come back to bite.”

For much of the past decade, Tesla has had no match in its model battery range and other performance measures. Consumers delayed by Musk’s mischief have a few EVs to aim for. When legacy vehicle makers introduce more capable electric models, Tesla won’t have much time to spare.

“We’ve seen among early adopters more willingness to take risks or accept the unusual,” said Dovorany, who left Escalent to start automotive technology earlier this year. “We don’t see that much with shoppers coming in.” To win over this group, automakers need to check every box, and for some, that includes hiring a chief executive who doesn’t share Hitler memes on social media.

Levitt, a former Musk fanboy, did a trial last month with Lucid. He didn’t sell it, partly because he didn’t have enough cargo space for his golf equipment. He is still waiting for other automakers to steal it from Tesla and is considering models from Audi, Mercedes and BMW.

“If you take out Mr. Musk and his antics out of the equation, I’m about 98 percent sure that my next car will be a Tesla,” Levitt said. “His antics got me into the game.”

Bloomberg

#Elon #Musks #antics #turn #owners #potential #buyers #Tesla