Musk endeavours

[Hallucigenia]

DOGE is not particularly hated - whereas Musk is.

I meant to provide some backup for this, namely the 21-24 April Siena College poll which asked half of the survey if they supported/opposed "Government spending cuts by DOGE" and the other half "Government spending cuts by Elon Musk and DOGE".

Mentioning Musk's name took net approval of DOGE cuts from -2 to -11 points. Which isn't too surprising given how unpopular he is, -21 points (35/56 favourable/unfavourable). That goes up to -49 points among 18-29yos, and -73 points among blacks. Unsurprisingly he's hated by Dems and Kamala voters, but Republicans and Trump voters are only luke-warm towards him, with around 75% favourable.

More striking is the change among the 33% of voters who identify as independent. In the 27-30 January poll from Siena, they were 45-38 (+7) favourable towards Musk, but three months later the independents were 29-63 (-34) against him, despite being only -10 opposed to DOGE.

And that's before the cuts have really hit anyone.

[CliffEdge]

What a shame if a really good company like Tesla is ruined by a dickhead.

[servodude]

What a shame if a really good company like Tesla is ruined by a dickhead.

Look, Ford did alright despite the best efforst of Henry; there's hope for Tesla still. (Though I do think that a lot of it will be in their less visible outputs)

[Mike4]

What a shame if a really good company like Tesla is ruined by a dickhead.

Look, Ford did alright despite the best efforst of Henry; there's hope for Tesla still. (Though I do think that a lot of it will be in their less visible outputs)

I think so too. Just not with cars.

Musk has obviously lost interest in cars and the car business will whither on the vine.

This became clear to me when he declared the 'phantom braking' was not a problem and did not need fixing. It's bloody annoying but in the long term it will pan out to just be another of the many Tesla 'quirks' that make the cars so appealing, and they drift into being "old fashioned classic car" in status.

[CliffEdge]

Look, Ford did alright despite the best efforst of Henry; there's hope for Tesla still. (Though I do think that a lot of it will be in their less visible outputs)

I think so too. Just not with cars.

Musk has obviously lost interest in cars and the car business will whither on the vine.

This became clear to me when he declared the 'phantom braking' was not a problem and did not need fixing. It's bloody annoying but in the long term it will pan out to just be another of the many Tesla 'quirks' that make the cars so appealing, and they drift into being "old fashioned classic car" in status.

But the new Y is reputedly the best available electric car on the market. Though I doubt the average Jo would waste so much money buying a new one. But if the price can be made reasonable theyll sell like burgers to Eskimos
.

[odysseus2000]

I think so too. Just not with cars.

Musk has obviously lost interest in cars and the car business will whither on the vine.

This became clear to me when he declared the 'phantom braking' was not a problem and did not need fixing. It's bloody annoying but in the long term it will pan out to just be another of the many Tesla 'quirks' that make the cars so appealing, and they drift into being "old fashioned classic car" in status.

But the new Y is reputedly the best available electric car on the market. Though I doubt the average Jo would waste so much money buying a new one. But if the price can be made reasonable theyll sell like burgers to Eskimos
.

You have this so right!

Regards,

[Howard]

Tesla sold 512 cars in the UK in April. Market share 0.43%.

BYD sold 2,511 in April, having really only started selling cars in volume in the UK a couple of months ago.

I'm sure there can be all sorts of reasons/excuses but is this a pointer to the future?

regards

Howard

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

[servodude]

Tesla sold 512 cars in the UK in April. Market share 0.43%.

BYD sold 2,511 in April, having really only started selling cars in volume in the UK a couple of months ago.

I'm sure there can be all sorts of reasons/excuses but is this a pointer to the future?

regards

Howard

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

I've posited here a few times that I think Tesla will see more growth outwith vehicles and then this popped up in my feed yesterday

https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-battery-storage-revenue-trumps-electric-vehicle-sales-in-australia-as-revenue-tops-5-billion-for-first-time/

United States EV and battery giant Tesla earned more than $5 billion in revenue in Australia in calendar 2024, with sales from its battery division leaping nearly five-fold to outstrip that from electric vehicle sales for the first time over the year.

I'm not sure how many fingers in other pies the other EV manufacturers have, but the fact there's an online ordering form for megapacks https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design does kind of set them apart in my thinking

[odysseus2000]

Tesla sold 512 cars in the UK in April. Market share 0.43%.

BYD sold 2,511 in April, having really only started selling cars in volume in the UK a couple of months ago.

I'm sure there can be all sorts of reasons/excuses but is this a pointer to the future?

regards

Howard

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

No one knows.

New model Y are only recently in inventory for delivery this month.

Assuming no more delivery disruptions we should see a clearer picture by the end of July.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

US EV sales dipped a little, rare occurrence, but overall US auto market up:

https://x.com/wallstengine/status/19200 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

WeRide & Uber expanding international partnership for autonomous driving:

https://x.com/wallstengine/status/19196 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

[Howard]

Tesla registered 885 cars in Germany in April.

BYD registered 1566 cars in Germany in April.

regards

Howard

https://carnewschina.com/2025/05/06/chi ... 4-mg-1747/

[odysseus2000]

Tesla haters will enjoy this:

https://x.com/bydonkeys/status/19201551 ... DCpgdbFBxg

Regards,

[88V8]

Tesla haters will enjoy this:...

I thought it survived pretty well. If the occupants had ducked down they'd have been OK.
Good promo for Tesla.

V8

[odysseus2000]

Tesla haters will enjoy this:...

I thought it survived pretty well. If the occupants had ducked down they'd have been OK.
Good promo for Tesla.

V8

Exactly, it demonstrated just how strong Tesla cars are.

However, not as strong as the irrational beliefs of a large subset of the population who believe that anyone who doesn’t think like them is wrong.

It is fascinating to me how human belief once created can be so fixed that it is near impossible to change no matter what evidence or threat is presented. Very good for religion's, but dangerous for society.

Regards,

[Howard]

It's competitors and consumers who are doing the crushing.

Tesla sales in China a couple of weeks ago were 10,300 (compared with BYD 62,200) . Xiaomi continued to dominate the Model 3 market segment with 7,000 sales.

Tesla sales last week up to April 4 were 7,330, BYD 59,310 and Xiaomi 5,700.

After 14 weeks Tesla sales in China are down 14.5% compared with last year at the same time.

regards

Howard
https://carnewschina.com/2025/05/07/chi ... -7300-byd/

[Tedx]

To be fair it was only a lil ol' Sherman. 30 tonnes maybe? A 70 tonne M1 Abrams should do the trick.

[odysseus2000]

To be fair it was only a lil ol' Sherman. 30 tonnes maybe? A 70 tonne M1 Abrams should do the trick.

Car crushers typically use 150 tones, so would need over two M1 Abrams:

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-crusher1.htm

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Waymo in Tokyo (short):

https://youtube.com/shorts/seGQwRexBOQ? ... I7OiC3PXIq

Regards,

[Mike4]

Elon kick-started the proper electric car market after all the damage done by Sir Clive Sinclair with his joke car and shown they can be proper cars. But now this has been done and the big players are overtaking him and Tesla, he has lost interest in cars and has moved on to space travel and home batteries. Same will happen with those in a decade.

This is my reading of the situation anyway.