When it comes to running a polarizing brand, sowing can be fun, but reaping has its challenges.
Charlie has a piece this morning rightly criticizing the Left’s sudden, collective antipathy toward Teslas. The Democratic Senator Adam Schiff was quoted as saying about the car brand owned and operated by Elon Musk, “I sure as hell wouldn’t buy one now. If I’d have known what a selfish and destructive human being he would be, I never would have bought one to begin with. I’d be happy to unload it.”
Charlie responds:
I find this attitude bizarre. Does Schiff like the car? If so, has that car changed for the worse in the last year? The purpose of a Tesla — or of any car — is to be a car. It’s not a charity donation, or an affinity tattoo, or a T-shirt with a political slogan on it. It’s a car. Scouring the market for products made by companies whose founders or executives you like is a silly, unwinnable game that, ultimately, deprives you of the core benefits of capitalism. I understand that Adam Schiff is a political person — he’s a U.S. senator, after all — but is he really so political that he intends to sell his car because he dislikes the owner of the company that produced it?
Cars are funny things. More than any other common household object, we impart sentience to our vehicles — though, paradoxically, this tendency has declined as cars have become more and more autonomous. But traditionally, these movement machines have personalities, quirks, and names. All that said, Charlie is 99 percent correct, cars are just products. Except, that is, for Tesla.
Similar to Apple’s Mac in the personal computing space (find me someone who has a strong opinion about Lenovo vs. Dell) or, well, Apple’s iPhone in the cellular communications space (Androids are only ever compared to iPhones), Tesla has made a name for itself as being the disruptive outsider. Whether it be upending the dealership-sales model, making its own charging network, deciding against using body lines (the Tesla Cybertruck being the sharply rendered exception to their rule), or replacing its marketing department with more-or-less organic hype, the company has gone its own way, making more than few enemies within and without the auto-manufacturing world.
And one needn’t upend the regime to be polarizing — nor are strong feelings about a car brand at all foreign to conservatives. Recall the grimacing disdain on Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino protagonist as his son drives away in a foreign. Or take the Toyota Prius. On its surface it’s little more than an ingenious bit of hybrid engineering with a hatchback slapped on top. However, ask the average Republican voter in public if he’d like one for free, and you’re likely to be sent packing with some combination of colorful languages and queries as to the status of your manhood sent with you. It’s a shame, too, as I’ve written in the past. But the Prius couldn’t escape its tree-hugging, pride-flag bumper-sticking reputation.
Tesla has earned millions and billions of dollars in free press coverage for its unorthodox treatment of its industry’s sacred cows and its owner’s peculiarities. But that model runs the risk of going off the rails or offending a swath of consumers, and without a marketing team standing by to clean up the mess, you have to weather it.
Elon is reaping what he’s been sowing for years . . . today he got himself a whirlwind. Luckily for him, Teslas have solid NHTSA crash ratings.