Tesla is attracting more and more Republicans. MAGA wets panties.

Joe Capitalist said:
A new survey shows that Tesla is gaining steam as a brand with Republicans after being a darling of the Democrats for years.

In general, Tesla buyers, and electric car buyers, have always been more likely to be Democrat than Republican.

Left-leaning individuals are generally more environmentally cautious, though climate change concerns have been gradually gaining ground on the right in the last few years.

But EV buyers tending to be more Democrat than Republican is also due to the market incentives.

That’s due to blue states like California implementing stronger EV incentives to encourage buying electric vehicles than red states.

California is still Tesla’s biggest market in the US, but since the automaker moved its headquarters to Texas, the automaker is making progress with Republicans.

A new survey shows an important three-point increase in Republicans considering a Tesla as their next car over just a month (via CNN):

Surveys by research firm Morning Consult show that in January about 22% of Democrats were considering buying a Tesla, while 17% of Republicans were looking to purchase one. And that gap has been closing — Republican consideration of buying a Tesla has risen about 3 percentage points just since December’s survey.

That’s when it comes to jumping into action and actually planning to buy a car, but even more surprising, Republicans are now more trusting of Tesla as a brand than Democrats:

And Republicans are slightly more likely to trust the Tesla brand, 27% compared to 25% among Democrats.
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Didn't know driving one was a political statement. I prefer front engine, gas engine cars because I know how to maintain and fix them, and they will generally last forever if you maintain them properly. These battery cars are not built to be fixed once the batteries wear out. They are like cell phones- once used up toss them out and buy a new one.
 
Dark Soul said:
Didn't know driving one was a political statement. I prefer front engine, gas engine cars because I know how to maintain and fix them, and they will generally last forever if you maintain them properly. These battery cars are not built to be fixed once the batteries wear out. They are like cell phones- once used up toss them out and buy a new one.
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I always thought driving a Tesla was more a status symbol thing rather than political but what do I know.
 
cawacko said:
I always thought driving a Tesla was more a status symbol thing rather than political but what do I know.
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It's just the latest appliance, like having a Samsung five-door refrigerator with a computer screen and wifi, except you don't have to invite people into your kitchen to show it off.

Car guys like me will never own one because of the aforementioned reasons, and because cars are much more than an appliance to us.

The only E- vehicle I would consider would be something like Ford's new F150 electric, and only as a second vehicle. It has the ability to provide power to your house if the utility power goes out. Based on amp-hour capacity alone it's cheaper than buying a Tesla PowerWall, and on top of that you get a truck. However it's too damn big. If they made a mid-sized truck with the same capability I would have ordered one instead of the base Ranger that I'm waiting for delivery on.
 
Darla said:
He really brings up an interesting perspective about tech companies as a whole. Because they are always promoting their diversity and I never noticed until recently that a lot of this diversity is non-black POC. I've tried to pay a lot more attention to that especially internet comments that begin "as a POC" or "as a WOC". Black twitter opened my eyes about a lot of this, and then it becomes kind of glaring.

And yep, there is no purity!
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You may have seen in the news last week the recall of three SF Board of Education members. A big impetus behind it was the changing of Lowell High School (one of the top public schools in the country) from merit based to lottery based. Lowell is interesting. The school is about 18% white yet the argument is it lacks diversity. On the surface that seems very contradictory but of course it's a majority Asian. (as you said, non black POC) I believe NYC has a large Asian population but in SF Asians make up 1/3 of the population. So for poor(er) kids in SF who can't afford private school, Lowell has always been your best option to get a private school level education. So many Asian families were not happy at all with this move.

Asians are interesting because when it comes to voting they are generally considered P.O.C. And you look at our country's history they have certainly been discriminated against. Yet when you look at earnings I believe Asians out earn any other group. When you look at top Universities in this country Asians are over represented.

You go back 30 to 40 years, a majority of Asians voted Republican. But that has changed and they've have long since voted Democratic, especially in SF and California. Yet even though they are largely Democrats they were the driver behind this school board recall and also strongly supported the 2020 ballot measure in California banning race based admissions (affirmative action).

A lot of interesting dynamics at play.
 
cawacko said:
You may have seen in the news last week the recall of three SF Board of Education members. A big impetus behind it was the changing of Lowell High School (one of the top public schools in the country) from merit based to lottery based. Lowell is interesting. The school is about 18% white yet the argument is it lacks diversity. On the surface that seems very contradictory but of course it's a majority Asian. (as you said, non black POC) I believe NYC has a large Asian population but in SF Asians make up 1/3 of the population. So for poor(er) kids in SF who can't afford private school, Lowell has always been your best option to get a private school level education. So many Asian families were not happy at all with this move.

Asians are interesting because when it comes to voting they are generally considered P.O.C. And you look at our country's history they have certainly been discriminated against. Yet when you look at earnings I believe Asians out earn any other group. When you look at top Universities in this country Asians are over represented.

You go back 30 to 40 years, a majority of Asians voted Republican. But that has changed and they've have long since voted Democratic, especially in SF and California. Yet even though they are largely Democrats they were the driver behind this school board recall and also strongly supported the 2020 ballot measure in California banning race based admissions (affirmative action).

A lot of interesting dynamics at play.
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Yes, I followed that, I subscribe to the Chronicle even though I don't live in SF, so I read all about it. Pretty complex racial dynamics in play on that one.
 
Darla said:
Yes, I followed that, I subscribe to the Chronicle even though I don't live in SF, so I read all about it. Pretty complex racial dynamics in play on that one.
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You probably see something similar in NYC don't you? Please correct me if I'm wrong but I know NYC has some top merit based public schools and DiBlasio worked to make them lottery based instead of merit based? (under the guise of equity). I know this also happened at Thomas Jefferson H.S. in Virginia. It's an interesting discussion. Should our country have elite public high schools like Lowell, TJ, Bedford Stuy etc. that cater to our top students or in this new era of D,E & I are they outdated?
 
Celticguy said:
not to mention being virulently anti-union.

this may be the real reason conservatives like them.
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I've never bought a car based on politics but I'm sure there are some who do. Political parties know everything about us, including what we like to drive, so I'm sure there's an element of marketing that goes on in that regard.

I still think of Tesla as more a status symbol thing and have a hard time thinking someone on the right, when determining what car to buy, thinks "Tesla is anti-union so I'll support them". But ultimately I can't speak for others in that regard.
 
cawacko said:
I've never bought a car based on politics but I'm sure there are some who do. Political parties know everything about us, including what we like to drive, so I'm sure there's an element of marketing that goes on in that regard.

I still think of Tesla as more a status symbol thing and have a hard time thinking someone on the right, when determining what car to buy, thinks "Tesla is anti-union so I'll support them". But ultimately I can't speak for others in that regard.
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clearly a status symbol trophy and certainly conservatives are consumers of same.

Tesla dominates the EV market so its not surprising people gravitate to them.

Hard to see Chevys and Nissans as high end so they wont appeal.

But if a conservative happens to hear about Biden's ignoring of Tesla as he tries to sell EV because of their union stance, well, just one more reason to look that way.
 
cawacko said:
You probably see something similar in NYC don't you? Please correct me if I'm wrong but I know NYC has some top merit based public schools and DiBlasio worked to make them lottery based instead of merit based? (under the guise of equity). I know this also happened at Thomas Jefferson H.S. in Virginia. It's an interesting discussion. Should our country have elite public high schools like Lowell, TJ, Bedford Stuy etc. that cater to our top students or in this new era of D,E & I are they outdated?
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Yes DeBlasio did do that, but I think it was just for a year, and I'm not sure that's been continued under Adams. There was a real problem with diversity, and probably still is.
 
Darla said:
Yes DeBlasio did do that, but I think it was just for a year, and I'm not sure that's been continued under Adams. There was a real problem with diversity, and probably still is.
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It's so interesting because Stuyvesant High School, for example, announces its student body as 81% P.O.C. and 43% economically disadvantaged. On the surface that seems pretty diverse to me. But it's 71% Asian. So goes back to diversity meaning Black and Hispanic.
 
cawacko said:
It's so interesting because Stuyvesant High School, for example, announces its student body as 81% P.O.C. and 43% economically disadvantaged. On the surface that seems pretty diverse to me. But it's 71% Asian. So goes back to diversity meaning Black and Hispanic.
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Yep. Did you see the Sf Chronicle report about that UC Berkeley case we were talking about the other day? They lost. It was a very interesting article that delved into all sides of the issue.
 
Darla said:
Yep. Did you see the Sf Chronicle report about that UC Berkeley case we were talking about the other day? They lost. It was a very interesting article that delved into all sides of the issue.
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I did see it and its asinine to me. I hear the argument that if these kids can get into Berkeley they can get into other good schools as well and that is true, but it still doesn't justify the actions. The housing issue for kids is a real one though. We have good family friends whose daughter is a Freshman at Cal. We saw her for Christmas (I love giving her a hard time because she didn't get into USC). She's living in a small dorm room with two other girls. (The type of dorm that really should be for one person but they usually put two. Well there's three for her.) And this is happening during COVID so she's spending far more time in her room than she normally would. She hates it and will likely transfer next year she said.

They can build more housing for kids but all the neighbors block it. It's fvcked up to me.
 
cawacko said:
I did see it and its asinine to me. I hear the argument that if these kids can get into Berkeley they can get into other good schools as well and that is true, but it still doesn't justify the actions. The housing issue for kids is a real one though. We have good family friends whose daughter is a Freshman at Cal. We saw her for Christmas (I love giving her a hard time because she didn't get into USC). She's living in a small dorm room with two other girls. (The type of dorm that really should be for one person but they usually put two. Well there's three for her.) And this is happening during COVID so she's spending far more time in her room than she normally would. She hates it and will likely transfer next year she said.

They can build more housing for kids but all the neighbors block it. It's fvcked up to me.
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Their argument seems to be that the students take up housing that pushes out low income people, but I didn't know whether to believe that. Not bring from the area, and also have some local experience with NIMBYs
 
Darla said:
Their argument seems to be that the students take up housing that pushes out low income people, but I didn't know whether to believe that. Not bring from the area, and also have some local experience with NIMBYs
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They're full of sh*t. They're not going to gather as much sympathy if they come out and say they're worried about their property values. One could easily respond to them (these NIMBYs aren't all white but many are) that these folks opposing the new student housing are largely well off white people more worried about their property values than they are the opportunity a Cal education gives to many low income P.O.C. for whom a Cal degree could change the trajectory of their family.

If there was a bunch of low income/section 8 housing surrounding campus that they were proposing to tear down to build student housing then maybe they would have an argument. But that's not the case. Berkeley has always had an anti-development attitude so this is nothing new unfortunately.
 
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