Dennis Levitt got his first Tesla, a blue Model S, in 2013, and loved it. “It was so much better than any car I've ever driven,” the 73-year-old self-storage company executive says.
He bought into the brand as well as Elon Musk, Tesla Inc.’s charismatic chief executive officer, purchasing another
“I was a total Musk fanboy,” Levitt says.
Was, because while Levitt still loves his Teslas, he’s soured on Musk. “Over time, his public statements have really come to bother me,” Levitt said, citing the CEO’s
Before it was reported Musk
The trends have shown up in one consumer survey and market research report after another: Tesla commands high brand awareness, consideration and
Creative Strategies, a California-based customer-experience measurer, mentioned owner frustration with Musk in a
“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,’” says Mike Dovorany, who spoke with thousands of EV owners and potential buyers during his two years working in Escalent’s automotive and mobility group.
Tesla has so far had no trouble growing its way through Musk’s many controversies. The
Musk’s star power, built in no small part by his activity on Twitter — the same forum where he’s become such a lightning rod — has contributed immensely to Tesla, especially since it’s
But after making Tesla and himself so synonymous with one another, Musk has waded into political conflicts, attempted to buy one of the world’s most influential social media platforms and struggled to bat back unflattering coverage of his personal life, putting the company’s
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“Elon has just soiled that brand for me so much that I don't even think I would take one if I won one,” Stone says. “You have this guy who's the richest dude in the world, who has this huge megaphone, and he uses it to
According to Strategic Vision, a US research firm that consults auto companies, some 39% of car buyers say they wouldn’t consider a Tesla. That’s not necessarily out of the ordinary — almost half of respondents say they won’t consider German luxury brands. But Tesla does lag more mass-market brands: Toyota, for example, is only off the shopping list for 23% of drivers.
Emma Sirr, a 28-year-old worker in cloud computing who lives in Bozeman, Montana, gets around with her partner and their two dogs in a 2004 Nissan Frontier. They've been researching EVs for about three years and until recently considered Teslas the only viable option, given their range and the
“We took Tesla off the table from the get-go,” Sirr says. She and her partner have their eyes on the Kia Niro and Chevrolet Bolt as possible alternatives. “As consumers, our power is what we buy. I think younger generations in particular vote with their wallets, and I feel like that might come back to bite.”
For much of the past decade, Tesla lacked competitors that matched its models’ battery range and other measures of performance. Consumers put off by Musk’s mischief had few EVs to turn to. As legacy automakers introduce
“We've seen among the early adopters more of a willingness to take risks or to put up with things that are out of the ordinary,” says Dovorany, who left Escalent for an automotive tech startup earlier this year. “We're not seeing that as much with incoming buyers.” To win this cohort, automakers need to check every box, and for some, that includes employing a CEO who doesn’t
Levitt, the self-described former Musk fanboy, took a test ride last month in a Lucid. He wasn’t sold on it, partly he says because it didn’t have enough cargo space for his golf gear. He’s still waiting for another automaker to steal him away from Tesla and considering models from Audi, Mercedes and BMW.
“If you take Mr. Musk and his antics out of the equation, I'm about 98% certain that my next car would be a Tesla,” Levitt says. “His antics put me in play.”
To contact the authors of this story:
Ira Boudway in New York at
Kyle Stock in Skillman at