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Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, Calif., on Dec. 20.
Elon Musk’s full-throated support for Trump, backed by the US$250-million he spent to help Trump retake the White House, has sparked much soul-searching among existing Tesla owners and potential buyers. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images When Jeff Cowie bought his first electric car in 2019, the Tesla Model 3 checked all the boxes: It meshed with his environmental ideals, offered a fun driving experience and the technology aligned with what he was used to as an avid Apple user. Mr.
Cowie admits he was also impressed by the bold ambitions of Tesla Inc.’s TSLA-Q space-exploring chief executive officer, Elon Musk . The wheels have since come off, in more ways than one.
After just 33,000 kilometres on the road, the car developed a noisy suspension problem that left Mr. Cowie, who lives near Vancouver, feeling like “I was driving around in a jalopy,” he said. Then there were the noises coming from Mr.
Musk, namely the multibillionaire’s sharp turn to the right, his cozying up to Donald Trump and his embrace of wild conspiracy theories. “He sold me a false bill of goods all around,” said Mr. Cowie, who, after learning he’d need to fork over $5,000 for repairs, sold his Tesla last April.
Another Tesla was not an option – he replaced it with a Hyundai Ioniq 5 instead. “As Elon exposed himself for who he truly was, I wanted to get as far away from him as possible.” Mr.
Musk’s full-throated support for Mr. Trump, backed by the US$250-million he spent to help Mr. Trump retake the White House, has paid off as far as Tesla’s stock market value – and Mr.
Musk’s net worth – are concerned. Since election day in the United States, Tesla’s share price has soared 66 per cent, having doubled at one point, as investors gamble that his insider status in the Trump administration will reap benefits for the company. But it has also sparked much soul-searching among existing Tesla owners and potential buyers.
A brand that was once cherished by the environmental left for bringing electric vehicles to the mainstream is now far less palatable for that crowd owing to its boss’s politics. “For the customer base that jumped on board with Tesla because it was the future of green technology and who liked to brag two years ago about their Teslas, I think Musk has alienated them,” said Jake Brower, an associate professor of marketing at Queen’s University. Dr.
Brower is now quite familiar with that sentiment. When he and his wife talked about buying their first EV last summer, “the very first thing she said to me was, ‘We’re not looking at a Tesla. I don’t want a penny of my money going to anything Musk is involved in,’” he said.
The couple bought a Ford Mustang Mach-E battery EV instead, taking advantage of big incentives from the manufacturer, dealer and federal government that shaved a combined $20,000 off the suggested price. Such purchase decisions are playing out on a larger scale. Tesla’s annual vehicle sales in 2024 fell for the first time in more than a decade, the company reported on Jan.
2, despite a record number of deliveries in the fourth quarter that came thanks to year-end discounts and financing incentives. In California, where Tesla found its earliest adherents, the number of new vehicle registrations for Teslas dropped 3.5 per cent in the third quarter from the year before, though the Tesla Model Y remained the top-selling car in the state during the first nine months of last year, according to the California New Car Dealers Association.
In October, actor Jason Bateman revealed he’d sold his Tesla because Mr. Musk’s politics made him “feel like I’m driving around a Trump sticker.” Indeed, Mr.
Musk has inspired a cottage industry of bumper stickers for Tesla owners who want to distance themselves from the CEO – one sticker that reads “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” is among the best-selling bumper stickers on Amazon.com Inc.’s U.
S. online store. Tesla doesn’t break out its results by geography in its financial reporting, but the trajectory of the company’s sales in Canada can be gleaned from EV rebate numbers published by Transport Canada under its Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV) program.
For battery electrics, every vehicle with a base-model price of less than $55,000 for cars and $60,000 for larger vehicles qualifies for a rebate of up to $5,000. During the past year, the number of Tesla buyers in Canada who received rebates declined, even as the overall number of rebates for battery EVs increased. For instance, in the last 3-month period from Sept.
1 to Nov. 30, roughly 9,300 Tesla buyers received rebates under the incentive program, down from around 19,980 during the same period in 2023. In terms of market share of battery EV rebates, Tesla accounted for just under one-quarter of iZEV rebates for November, down from 47.
5 per cent in November, 2023. The rebate numbers are an imperfect measure. The flow of Tesla buyers receiving rebates has swung wildly depending on the timing of the company’s own incentives and price cuts, and the numbers don’t capture high-priced EVs, such as Tesla’s top-of-the-line models and trims, though 13 variants of the popular Model 3 and Model Y do qualify .
Even so, Erik Johnson, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets who follows the EV sector, said in an e-mail that, based on the rebate numbers he’s looked at, “it’s clear Tesla’s market share is eroding.” There could be several factors driving the change, he said. For one thing, there’s been a lack of new models from Tesla.
The angular Cybertruck has been sighted on Canadian roads, but with a starting price of $137,900, it’s hardly a mass-market vehicle. At the same time, after having the EV market largely to itself, Tesla must contend with rivals who have ramped up their own EV offerings and are providing large incentives to attract customers, said Mr. Johnson.
The year 2023 was particularly strong for Tesla in Canada because it rolled out a cheaper, rear-wheel-drive version of its mid-sized vehicle, which qualified for the federal government’s iZEV rebate and became the best-selling EV in the country. However, those vehicles were made in China. Last summer, Ottawa imposed a 100-per-cent tariff on EV imports from China, which took effect in October.
In November, Canada imported only 46 battery EVs from China, down from nearly 3,000 a year earlier. It’s unclear what impact that may be having on Tesla’s supply of vehicles in Canada. The company did not respond to interview requests.
Mr. Johnson said a “potential backlash from consumers concerned with Elon Musk’s politics” may also be behind the sales and market share slide. That’s how Andreas Souvaliotis, an entrepreneur and marketing expert, sees it.
To him, Tesla is so closely intertwined with Mr. Musk that the man and the company can’t be separated. “When you wrap one brand around another and the core item, the leader, becomes unpopular, it becomes difficult for the brand to recover from that,” he said.
“I don’t think Tesla will ever be hot again.” Others disagree. David Soberman, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, said with the U.
S. so deeply divided, whatever customers Tesla might lose on the left, it could ultimately pick up buyers on the right. “There will definitely be people who bought Teslas before who are left-wing tree huggers, and they probably won’t buy a Tesla now.
But I think there are a lot more people that will,” he said. In Canada, brand surveys certainly suggest the company is losing ground. The share of Canadians who would potentially consider buying a Tesla has been sliding for two years since peaking in 2022, according to YouGov, an online polling firm.
However, the survey also shows the company’s reputation has ticked up in Canada since the U.S. election.
The resolve of the anti-Elon crowd could be tested in 2025 if, as rumoured, Tesla releases a new model priced below US$30,000 after subsidies. In a recent note, Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu said such a model, which he dubbed the “Model Q,” is on its way, citing his discussions with a Tesla executive. For his part, Dr.
Brower sees a different distinction that could safeguard Tesla sales: that between Tesla’s green-minded erstwhile fans and those buyers who were drawn to the company primarily for its first-mover status. “The real core market for them is the cutting-edge, early-adopter types, and I think to get the newest, flashiest thing, they’ll hold their nose when it comes to Musk,” he said. “They’ll be the ones lined up to get Tesla’s first home robot when it’s created.
” But even some early adopters are done with Mr. Musk and his car company. Baha Ohcebol, a Toronto-based technology entrepreneur, was specifically drawn to Tesla for its Autopilot self-driving technology when he bought a fully equipped Model S for roughly $170,000 in 2022.
Once he drove the vehicle, however, he was underwhelmed by its quality and its technology. That, coupled with Mr. Musk’s “crazy tweets,” led him to list the vehicle for sale.
“I’d been thinking about selling it for the last six months, but I got serious about it right after the U.S. election,” he said.
“That’s not the only reason I’m selling, but it was the trigger. I don’t want to be associated with that guy.”.
