According to a CNN article published a few months ago, Tesla owners are nearly evenly split among Democrats and Republicans, with a slight weight on the Democratic side. The author opened his article by saying Elon Musk had recently trained his Twitter guns on Democrats and was also going after President Biden. It mentioned Musk going after Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but skipped over their earlier attacks on him. Despite starting out focused on this conflict, the article had a broader and more valuable message.
The article included some data from Morning Consult which showed that in January 2022, around 22% of Democrats were thinking of buying a Tesla and 17% of Republicans were thinking about purchasing one. The article noted that the gap had been closing and that Republican consideration for buying a Tesla had risen around 3% since December’s survey.
The article then included a short comment from Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision, which held a similar survey. Strategic Vision’s survey took place in 2019 and it showed that 38% of US Tesla buyers considered themselves Democrats while 30% considered themselves Republican. Edwards noted that the Republicans who owned a Tesla were mostly wealthy ones.
If this author wanted to add a bit more context to his piece, I think he should have included the political challenges on the state level that have hindered Tesla. I’m referring to the dealer industry getting policymakers to ban Tesla in various states from serving its customers and selling EVs directly to them in stores. That could also influence Tesla consumer interest and adoption rates.
In the end, the point is that people all along the political spectrum buy Teslas. Sustainability isn’t a Republican or Democratic necessity but a global one for humanity. The Republican–Democratic fighting and good-vs.-evil mentality is, I think, bad for all of us. Why don’t we look at what we have in common more? Why don’t we focus on what we share and what we can enjoy collaborating on?
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