Heads Explode As Tesla CEO Declares The Womb Makes The Woman
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As if the latest news about Tesla sales isn’t bad enough, here comes Tesla CEO Elon Musk to throw more gasoline on the dumpster fire — by evoking the gender gap, no less. “If you have a womb, you are a woman. Otherwise, you are not,” the self-declared expert on human anatomy declared on his social media platform X over the weekend, sparking a firestorm of commentary all over the Intertubes. Nice job reaching out to prospective EV buyers among the womb-having population, Elon….
Tesla Sales & The EV Gender Gap
The EV sales gender gap is a matter of concern for EV stakeholders overall, not just Tesla. In 2024, for example, the market research firm Escalante found that the EV market is “largely male-dominated, with men making up 71% of owners and 74% of shoppers and typically conducting more exploratory research throughout the purchasing process.” That’s a sharp contrast with the proportion of women in the overall auto market. In one widely cited study, women account for the majority of car sales in the US, at 62% in direct sales.
Some evidence indicates that EVs were marketed as a women’s vehicle in the early 1900s, as EV makers sought to hold onto their market share against rising competition from gas-fueled cars. The reasons for the gender gap of today are unclear, though personal safety and access to home charging stations have been identified as two potential factors, along with affordability. Some analysts also suggest that automakers need to re-calibrate their EV sales pitch to fit the needs and desires of the female-oriented mainstream market, having already tapped out the first wave of early adopters.
Either way, the gender winds have been blowing against EV sales in the 21st century. Though, the picture on Tesla sales is mixed. In 2023, for example, S&P ran the numbers and found that the Tesla Model Y was outperforming other EVs on sales to women.
That data was compiled before the full impact of Musk’s purchase of Twitter began to emerge, before the launch of the testosterone-fueled Cybertruck, and before Musk took on the role of Chopper-in-Chief in the Trump administration and fired tens of thousands of federal employees. Of note, women account for the majority of workers in several federal agencies targeted for mass reduction.
The firm Hedges & Company is among those observing that Tesla sales currently track the general state of the EV gender gap. “Overall, Tesla owners skew 74% male,” the firm noted in its most recent update.
How To Fix The EV Gender Gap — Not
If Tesla ever had an edge on sales to women, that has evaporated, and Musk has done little if anything to stop the bleeding. His forays into other business ventures have not been particularly helpful in that regard. In 2024, for example, Taylor Swift’s legion of fans mobilized to report offensive deepfake images of the high-profile pop star on Musk’s X social media platform (formerly Twitter), and last summer, Musk’s Grok chatbot was spotted ordering up deepfake images of Swift on command.
That brings us to the latest self-inflicted wound. As widely reported, on December 13, the CEO of Tesla felt compelled to issue the following reminder on X: “If you have a womb, you are a woman. Otherwise, you are not.”
Somehow that thought seems rather incomplete. One glaring omission is a declaration of the age cut-off. After all, lots of people have wombs. Womb-havers start growing a womb of their own even while still attached comfortably to the womb of another womb-haver. Fetuses aside, babies and children have wombs long before they achieve the stage commonly recognized as womanhood, which is understood to be something that happens after a long period of growth and development.
If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. In regards to completing a thought, Mark Twain offers some guidance. “Clothes make the man,” Twain once famously quipped, a translation of the well known Latin proverb vestis virum facit. However, Twain being Twain, he was not satisfied until the thought was complete. “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society,” is the full quote.
Next Steps For Tesla
As for the latest news about Tesla sales, CleanTechnica editor Zachary Shahan took note of the most recent figures in the US EV market on December 12. As reported initially by Reuters (citing data from Cox Automotive), the company’s year-on-year US sales for November slipped 23%, from 51,513 in November of 2024 to 39,800 in the same month this year.
“And that’s not all of the bad news,” Shahan added. “As we all know, Tesla launched decontented, cheaper versions of the Model 3 and Model Y in order to try to boost sales. Those vehicles dropped the low-end price of those models by $5,000–5,500, but that doesn’t even make up for $7,500 tax credit going away on October 1. So, unsurprisingly, these lower-quality versions of the Model 3 and Model Y have not kept sales afloat, not even close,” he concluded.
The Cybertruck provides another angle on the Tesla sales story. In November, Cox Automotive reported that Tesla sold just 5,385 Cypertrucks in Q3 2025, a year-on-year decline of almost 63% compared to the 14,416 number for Q3 2024. As noted by CleanTechnica among many others, not too long ago, Musk forecasted 150,000 Cybertruck sales per year.
A turnaround for the Cybertruck is nowhere in sight, particularly given the obstacles faced by the EV market overall. On top of Tesla’s ongoing troubles, in July, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a Trump-approved tax bill that took an axe to the $7,500 federal EV tax credit as of September 30. That sparked an EV buying spree as drivers rushed to order their cars before the deadline, followed by a deep, entirely predictable industry-wide slump in the two months since then.
In response, US automakers have pulled back on their near-term EV plans, though the long-term outlook remains positive. With the notable exception of Tesla, EV sales have continued to increase in key markets around the world. It’s only a matter of time before the US knuckles under the pressure.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a rising tide will lift the Tesla sales boat, too. Ford and GM are already laying plans to focus on EV affordability, undercutting Tesla’s prospects for a sales revival. The Cybertruck, in particular, will be facing stiff competition from legacy automakers as well as newcomers TELO Truck, the Jeff Bezos venture Slate Auto, and Scout Motors, a branch of Volkswagen Group.
Photo by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica archive.
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