Musk's self-inflicted wounds and new competitors

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I’ve been keeping up with some of what Musk has been doing and it’s reached a point where he’s created a lot of self-inflicted wounds for himself and his companies. He also has some new competitors to his businesses that he really should have been more aware of, given that one or two of them had been working directly with him to collaborate on products.

There’s a lot to cover and it will take several posts to get everyone up to speed. To start, instead of moving the post to here, I’m going to refer everyone to my March 18 message in the “Buying a new car?” topic for the full details. Here’s the bullet points, because they come into play again.

  • Tesla’s stock almost doubled in the 5 weeks after election day, then dropped to below that point mid-March. There’s several factors as to why, but in that message highlighted it’s because of Musk’s political activities.
  • Tesla is being protested almost daily, including protests involving violence.
  • “However, several government departments are now getting rid of the electric vehicles and charging stations they have, so we’ll see how long Trump still likes electric vehicles.”
  • The aesthetic design flaw of the Cybertruck where it is only meant to be viewed from the side.
  • Tesla in Canada suddenly “sold” 8600 vehicles the weekend a rebate program was announced as ending soon, causing it to end almost immediately, leaving other dealerships on the hook.
  • “An even bigger problem for him is the concerns that he’s so busy ripping apart the US Government that he doesn’t have time to run Tesla.”
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Let’s get the easy one out of the way.

Self-inflicted wound #1: Supporting Donald Trump

This was almost inevitable. The moment Musk decided he was going to get involved in politics, he would have supported Trump. Musk runs several big businesses and Republicans are infatuated with them (but not big government, of course), so they do everything they can to help big businesses at the expense of everything else.

Musk believes he is a very smart man. He probably thought that whatever Trump was going to do wouldn’t affect him. More likely, he probably thought he’d be able to run circles around Trump, flattering Trump to get what he wanted, getting exemptions to whatever Trump might put in his way. The fact that when Musk brought one of his kids with him to the White House for a meeting with Trump and the son told Trump, “You’re not the president. You need to go away now”, means he’s been saying in front of his family he can manipulate Trump. That would lead to another self-inflicted wound later on.

Musk took getting into politics a lot further and inserted himself into the Trump campaign and later the second Trump administration by putting a quarter billion dollars into getting Trump elected again. He initially got a big return on his investment by Tesla’s stock price doubling, being made the head of a new non-governmental department, and being able to go to the White House any time he wanted, which became a daily occurrence. That would lead to a third self-inflicted wound in a different area of politics.

All that began eroding away at the return on investment as Musk ran unchecked through the U.S. Government, doing whatever he wanted. This was aided and abetted by Trump, who would alternate between saying he is approving everything Musk was doing, but then not knowing what Musk was doing until a reporter asked him about it.

The Department of Government Efficiency was supposed to recommend ways to save costs, which was boasted to result in saving $2 trillion. Musk went straight to forcing costs to be cut, bringing out a chainsaw at a public event to show how he’s getting rid of waste and fraud. But unless it’s wielded by someone with skill, a chainsaw is a crude tool that can do a lot of damage.

The chainsaw approach to forcing cost-cutting would lead to another self-inflicted wound as DOGE itself became emblematic of waste and inefficiency, and everything Musk did as part of DOGE would lead to a fifth self-inflicted wound.

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Here we take a detour away from politics to look at a high profile product from Tesla.

Self-inflicted wound #2: The frame of the Cybertruck and over-hyped performance

The appearance of the Cybertruck is polarizing. Most either hate it or love it. The number of “meh” responses is low. I already pointed out that you’re only supposed to look at it from the side. Straight-on at the front or back and you could be looking at a 2D drawing on a wall, which I then created in Microsoft Paint.

There are other problems with it that will be covered separately. This is going to look at an issue of durability with the frame of the Cybertruck and how Musk’s own words boasting about it would come back to bite him later on as a self-inflicted wound.
 

At the presentation of the Cybertruck, Musk asked, “You want a truck that’s tough? You want a truck that’s really tough, not fake tough?” Infamously, the supposedly unbreakable “armor glass” for the windows wasn’t. Four years later, Musk says let’s try it again. He has Franz (same guy as last time) throw another ball and the window doesn’t break. Except, the ball this time isn’t metal. It’s a baseball. Musk changed the conditions of the test in more than just an improved window design. It takes other people recording their own videos to show the new windows can stand up to metal impacts, though one uses a marble-sized metal ball. And haven’t people already said that you don’t want unbreakable windows on a car or truck so that emergency personnel can get you out of them after a crash?

Regardless, the frame has its own set of problems that are due to it being made from cast aluminum instead of steel. Videos started being posted showing it having catastrophic failures while towing and under other situations like pulling out another truck that was stuck. Two newer videos help pinpoint the problems.
 

The first video is “Should you tow with a Cybertruck?! - (catastrophic failure test)”, hosted by Zack. Here’s info on the frame:

  • Tesla uses the Giga Press, an aluminum injection molding machine that can make a Cybertruck frame in minutes. It’s an aluminum frame instead of steel.
  • Casted aluminum is more porous than than extruded aluminum or steel.
  • The Cybertruck is rated for 11,000 pounds of towing capacity and a maximum of 1100 pounds on the tongue of the hitch. (May have been said in the video as “1500” pounds by mistake.)

The test was set up so a Caterpillar excavator would apply downward force on the hitch to see when it would break. The attached crane scale shows 6000 pounds is when something could be heard to start happening and a twist was visible. First crack was heard at 6700, the alarm system went off at 7000, truck is creaking at 8000, and at 9000, there is obvious movement of the parts. Failure occurred at 10,400 pounds.

Sounds good so far. The hitch took 10 times the downward force it was rated for.

But when Zack and the rest of the team looked at the failure, that’s when they found out about adhesive being used to attach the steel hitch to the aluminum frame. That makes sense because it’s very difficult to weld aluminum to other metals and requires specialized processes.

The glue lasted to the 10,400 pounds of force point, but all of the force was being transmitted to the frame through that adhesive. That means the aluminum frame started having problems at 6000 pounds.

Still, that’s over five times what it’s rated for. As long as the trailer carries 90% of the weight, it should be good. But there are times when more weight will transfer onto the hitch, like when cresting a hill or going up a steep driveway, pulling another vehicle out of a mud pit while off-roading, or if the trailer comes off the ball of the hitch and the trailer jerks down on the safety chains. Pot holes could also cause weight to go onto the ball.

The team also wasn’t impressed with seeing the frame was only 3/16" at the point of breakage.

As a control, they repeated the test with a 2004 Dodge 2500 that has a steel frame. It had been in an accident so the hitch area was slightly bent already. At 5000 pounds, something moved on the truck, but by the time the Cat was applying 10,500 pounds, they had to switch to bouncing the load to try and simulate a higher weight.

Even with all that, the frame of the Dodge never reached a failure point and the hitch area stopped moving after a while. This was addressed in the second video.
 

Jason Fenske at Engineering Explained decided to look at the hitch issue in a more real-world and logical manner in his “Does The Tesla Cybertruck Have A Problem? Broken Tow Hitch!” video. He has five questions:

  1. What do regulations require? (for the 11,000 pound tow rating)
  2. Could a real world scenario load the hitch to 11,000 pound? (Vertical load, heavy braking or pothole.)
  3. What are the industry standards for other OEMs?
  4. Are there any fatigue life concerns? (Specifically from the hitch being attached to an aluminum frame.)
  5. Should customers worry about towing at rated capacity?

I’ll try to condense this even more. The hitch has to be designed to take 47% of the weight of the trailer as a vertical load on the hitch, plus 480 pounds, for at least five seconds. Cybertruck is rated for 11,000 pounds towing, so it has to meet 5650 pounds. It does, at 184% when the failure point occurred.

The coupler on the trailer that docks with the ball is mounted on the hitch has to be able to take 1.3 times the tow rating, which is 14,300 pounds of vertical load in this case. That would 138% of the observed failure point.

To address his second question, Jason asked, “Can you do everything right and still fall into a situation where you’d exceed that vertical load?” This is not deliberately over-stressing the truck by a load with more than 10% on the hitch, jumping the truck while towing, and/or excessive speed.

The answer is yes. When you brake, weight on the trailer gets shifted into force on the hitch, even more so during a panic stop. Same goes with going down a hill. Hitting a pothole becomes a force multiplier and you can end up with 100% of the towed weight being put on the ball of the hitch.
 

In comparison, engineers at Ram Trucks (formerly Dodge Ram before it was spun off) use a steel frame and test for 15% of the weight on the hitch over 120,000 miles of real-world tow testing, using rough roads with bumps, potholes, inclines/declines and starts/stops for the truck. They use steel because it’s 3x stiffer and 5x tougher than aluminum, and resists bending and deformation better under load.

Steel also has an Endurance Limit where it stops bending and would break, so as long as you design it to withstand stress below that point, it will never break. Aluminum doesn’t have an Endurance Limit. As times goes on, the point where the amount of stress needed to fracture it gets lower and lower.

What this means is the core of the Cybertruck, its frame, has a weakness if it’s actually used for what it’s advertised and promoted as being capable of. If you tow anything with it, even if you keep it well below the limits, the stresses and forces that come with towing are being passed through the steel hitch into the aluminum frame the hitch is glued to. Use the Cybertruck for towing on a regular basis or even a somewhat frequent basis and you’re weakening its frame.

Commercial and military aircraft use aluminum alloy in their airframes. The airframes have published lifespans, such as 30,000 cycles and 70,000 flight hours. “Cycles” refers to how many times the aircraft is pressurized and depressurized for takeoff and landing.

While towing, the hitch experiences multiple cycles per minute as the trailer bounces and is jostled by the road you’re driving on. Take it on a washboard dirt or gravel road and it’s worse. Jason says this at the end of his video: ""If I could ask Tesla just one question, it would be ‘How many miles towing at rated capacity is the Cybertruck’s rear aluminum casting designed to handle?’
 

The decision to use aluminum may have come with the advantages of speed in manufacturing a lighter-weight frame in the than steel could provide, which would then decrease the costs of operating the truck (longer range per battery charge).

But the bad publicity that’s come from the failures of the frame and what appears to be the reduced lifespan of such a core part of its construction is a self-inflicted wound that may appear in the not too distant future. Is it feasible to take an otherwise working Cybertruck and move the components to a new frame like you can with a steel frame-based vehicle? Or will this end up being essentially a disposable vehicle if you tow with it?

There are more self-inflicted wounds surrounding the Cybertruck and other Tesla vehicles, and it’s not the only wound inflicted upon them by Musk’s words and deeds.

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Self-inflicted wound #3: Underpowered object detection in Autopilot mode

Tesla has a driver assist mode that they’re working on getting to the point where it will be fully autonomous, leading to use as self-driving robotaxis. In my opinion, the technology they’re using is underpowered because it deliberately does not use an item that just about every other car maker does: Lidar.

In a video by the Wall Street Journal titled “The Hidden Autopilot Data That Reveals Why Teslas Crash”, Musk is shown saying on April 22, 2019, Tesla wouldn’t be using “Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices.”

I wasn’t able to find again where I saw it, but I think another reason is Musk doesn’t like the idea of the laser in a Lidar system shining into peoples’ eyes. I had to verify Lidar operates at a lower strength that would require shining on the eye for several seconds to do any damage. As far as I know, there aren’t news reports about that being a frequent thing, so all of the thousands or millions of cars with Lidar must be doing okay.

What Tesla decided to do is to put a bank of camera on the cars, including a module up front with three cameras and feed the data into an image processing system. This is supplemented by radar on a few Telsa models, but not all.

The use of cameras only led Mark Rober to wonder “Can You Fool A Self Driving Car?” The answer is yes and we’ll go over that in a minute.
 

Because it’s a camera-only + image analysis detection method, there’s times when it hasn’t prevented an accident. It happens when the image analysis system doesn’t have reference pictures to compare with what the cameras are seeing now.

One fatal accident involved crashing into a semi on its side. That particular situation hadn’t been entered into the analysis system yet. Another fatal accident involved an instance where one of the three cameras up front detected a truck moving out from behind a bigger truck, but one of the two other cameras in that bank didn’t detect it. According to a former Telsa employee whose job it was to take images and label them for training the analysis system, he found the cameras weren’t calibrated so that all three were seeing the same object correctly.

In contrast, a driver assist system that includes Lidar creates a full circle map of what’s around the vehicle multiple times a second. It detects depth and it detects how solid the objects are, which is an important factor in Rober’s tests.

Maybe a camera-only system can get to the point where it’s better at detecting depth and solidity, but right now, it isn’t. It takes frequent updates with the new kinds of scenarios like the overturned semi to get it there. As the narrator of the WSJ’s video said, “Even though people think these cars are learning while they’re driving, they’re not. They’re only learning at the rate that the companies are deciding to retrain the algorithms.” How frequently is Telsa retraining their algorithms?
 

The WSJ video also included statements by Missy Cummings, an expert on autonomous driving: “Computer vision is such a deeply flawed technology, and we’re not doing enough to determine how to fix its gaps and how to make it recognize objects. Like, I look into my crystal ball, you know, ‘What do I see coming?’ I see that having the car do most of the driving for you and requiring you to pay attention to make sure nothing bad happens. I don’t think this is going to be a long-term technology that we’re gonna keep in the cars.”

Tesla has been very clear that drivers have to be continually ready to take control of the car when Autopilot is on. It’s not going to be like the I, Robot movie where Detective Del Spooner was reading the police reports while his car did all the driving itself. Autopilot also has a “five strikes” system where if it detects via the in-cabin camera that you’re not doing what you should while it’s active, you can’t use it for a week. (People have already found ways around that restriction.)

But I do wonder if all the hype about Autopilot and how it will get to that completely autonomous self-driving utopia Musk keeps describing isn’t having the effect that people are thinking it’s already ready, despite the warnings from Tesla that it isn’t.

On a more practical level, as it exists right now, if I have to be ready to take control at any moment, why shouldn’t I just do the driving myself and skip using Autopilot? The few seconds between a message telling me “take control now” and me taking control could be critical.
 

There’s another quote by Musk from that same April 22, 2019 presentation where he said, “We’ve gone over this multiple times, like, 'Are we sure we have the right sensor suite? Should we add anything more? No.”

That’s a statement that doesn’t sound confident. It sounds over-confident, based on what I learned in the two videos. Tesla avoided scope creep, but they also did not employ the 10% Rule: When you have a design that you know will work and have proved works, make it 10% better. It’s been my experience that when you say “We don’t need to improve this any more”, you’ll learn different in the future.

That leads us to the “Can You Fool A Self Driving Car?” video. (Link provided again so you don’t have to scroll back up.)

Rober came up with six tests to see how a Tesla with its camera-only detection system compared to a car with Lidar. The tests are:

  1. Detect stationary pedestrian.
  2. Detect moving pedestrian coming out from behind another object.
  3. Detect pedestrian obscured by fog.
  4. Detect pedestrian obscured by heavy rain.
  5. Detect pedestrian when there’s bright lights behind them, shining at you.
  6. Detect the Wile E. Coyote wall with a fake road on it.

It’s a good video to watch. It starts off with Rober smuggling in a portable Lidar system into Space Mountain to map out exactly what the amusement ride looks like.

Musk decided he didn’t need the detection system to be any better and ruled out using Lidar. It’s a self-inflicted wound that has caused more than just a wound for many of his customers.

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Please keep posting these. I appreciate the work and effort you are putting into this information gathering.

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Let’s mix this up a little and take a look at new competitor #1 for Tesla: Slate Auto.

Slate Auto is a new EV startup company that will launch with exactly one model of pickup in Q4 of 2026. Officially, there is only one variation: the one with the extended battery pack. But at the same time, they will be launching with five models that each have many variations. Here’s what it/they can/will look like:

Six Slates
Six Slates2050×624 210 KB

Top row, left to right: 1) Blank Slate, 2) Fastback SUV, 3) Squareback SUV.
Bottom row L-to-R: 4) with two Tower Racks, 5) with one Tower Rack, 6) Open Air.
Variations 2, 3 and 6 have another row of seats.

All of these could theoretically be the same vehicle. At the end of their “Slate Auto Reveal Event” on April 25, they demonstrated how they are by converting the Blank Slate into the Squareback in less than an hour.

Slate’s new Blank Slate is just that: a blank slate. It starts as a pickup. The barest bare-bones pickup there is. Hand-crank windows, a single instrument cluster display behind the steering wheel, levers on the steering column for windshield wipers and gearshift, simple dial controls for heating and AC and buttons on the steering wheel for cruise control. Two seats, two doors and a five foot bed.

There’s no stereo system, no infotainment/nav system, no wireless charging, no heads-up display on the windshield, no driver assist, no self-parking, no colored lighting, no heated or cooled seats, no automatic cup holders. Yes, that’s a thing. Yes, I stole that last line from their ad. Oh, and it’s only sold in one color: slate gray.
 

All of this is intentional. The company was started in 2022 when the founders looked at the auto industry and saw that it’s broken. The industry has been stuffing more and more into cars and trucks, and they get bigger and bigger and more and more expensive, because that’s how they think they add value. That’s been going on for a long time now. Over the course of a decade, a pickup that started as a compact could very shortly grow past mid-size into full-size.

And then there was the COVID-19 pandemic. Automakers decided to sell less vehicles but charge more for each one. Result: the average payment for a new car is almost double what is financially sound and responsible for the 70% of Americans making less than $100K/year. Average for a used car is over $100 higher than that responsible payment should be.

The Blank Slate is being estimated to have a price of under $27,500. Many of the websites covering this are saying it will be under $20K with environmental credits/rebates. But what’s been going on this year, don’t count on those rebates being available in the future.

Slate was able to get the cost that low by several making decisions:

  1. They took everything out of the design that wasn’t a car.
  2. The variations like Fastback SUV and Open Air are sold as add-on kits for the Blank Slate. Includes roll cage and airbags.
  3. The add-on kits can either be installed by Slate via their network of local service companies or by the customer.
  4. The add-on kits ship in a flat pack. So if you’ve turned your Blank Slate into the Squareback and decide you need the pickup mode again, what you take off can be stored fairly compactly, depending on how far you take it apart after taking it off.
  5. They do not have a paint shop in their factory, which is in Michigan. All of the exterior panels are dent-resistant composite material in just the one color.
  6. The exterior panels are specifically designed to have vinyl wraps put on them, with the coach lines made so you don’t have to remove any body trim to apply the wrap. Decorating the wheels is also done with wraps. This is where you get the color or design you want.
  7. Because the panels are designed and intended to be wrapped, it keeps the cost low and reduces the installation time from days to hours. Slate says their wraps start at about $500.
  8. Music and navigation is BYOD. They provide a holder and a USB port for your cell phone, so you get the apps and features you want, not what the automaker forces on you. Need something bigger? Get the tablet holder and slip in your own tablet. Want speakers? You can get a speaker holder for those pill-shaped Bluetooth speakers, or you can buy the ones from Slate that fit behind the dash. Snap the left/right up/down module into the steering wheel and it will control both over Bluetooth.
  9. If you want power windows, you can replace the hand cranks with a power windows kit.

They also have more traditional options: different wheels, seat covers, bumpers, roof rack, different decorative trim pieces for the front, rear and interior, spare tire holder, lighting options, etc. If you get the various lighting and other options, you can get the option that adds a row of buttons to control them.

Slate is also doing something no other company has done before: Some of the exterior decorative pieces like the covers for the front turn signals have been made open source. That means you can 3D print your own covers. You want the Death Star or Doctor Evil’s E triangle logo? You want a silhouette of Darth Vader or Doctor Evil? Print it. Got a printer that can use multiple colors of filaments at the same time and you want the frame around the light to look like a Pride flag? Have at it.

The Slate, with its variety of kits that you can get at any time, and support for third party open source printing (or second party, where you do the printing if you have your own), brings case modding and customization to the pickup in a way that is easier and more affordable for the owner.
 

Here’s some of the background information.

This is not a pocket rocket or an ultra-range vehicle. Standard battery is projected to have a range of 150 miles, extended battery 240. Zero to 60 in 8 seconds. Working to get a five-star crash rating. Has active emergency braking, forward collision warning and a backup camera, all standard. Support for Level 1, 2 and 3 charging, using the NACS plug.

It can carry a maximum of payload of ~1400 pounds and towing is ~1000 pounds. This is about what my crossover SUV can handle. Has a steel frame, so unlike the Cybertruck, you don’t have to worry about the core of the Slate having a catastrophic structural failure when towing.

When you add the Squareback or Fastback SUV kit, the extra weight is more than offset by better aerodynamics, so you get extra range from the battery. Both kits fit onto the pickup nicely so it doesn’t have the usual gap you see when you put a canopy on a pickup.

Slate Auto operated in stealth mode up until just about three weeks ago, hiring people with a lot of experience in the auto industry. The video I watched that had four auto experts discussing it said there’s something about that part of Michigan that just lends itself to being a good place to keep things a secret.

Pictures of the Blank Slate started showing up in April, with speculation that the company was run by Jeff Bezos. He is an investor, but doesn’t own Slate. Once word got out, they started with some viral marketing before the full reveal:

To close this out, here’s why I am listing this as a competitor to Tesla.

  • Similar bed size as the Cybertruck.
  • Designed from the get-go to have a range extender. In contrast, the range extender for the Cybertruck sounded like it had to be grafted into the bed and they were having problems making it work, so they canceled it a few days ago. (Possibly also due to another of Musk’s self-inflicted wounds, to be discussed later.)
  • Shows what you can do when you get back to basics and don’t overtake the plumbing.
  • By having at least some physical controls, you can use your peripheral vision to locate them and touch them quickly, instead of having to look directly at the tablet and navigate through menus to adjust things.
  • Has a price point that Musk keeps flip-flopping on whether or not he’ll release a vehicle at that cost. (To be covered in a future reply.)
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Couple more bits about the Slate:

It will be sold direct to customers. No having to go through a dealership.

When you look at the sample configurations on their website (slate.auto), #18, “Beach Bound” with the Open Air kit, doesn’t have the driver’s door on it. Makes it sound like the doors are removable so you can have a dune buggy-like configuration.

That’s entirely doable. The hand-crank windows you get with the Blank Slate means there’s no harnesses running between the door and the body. The only question is if you replace the crank handles with the power window controller, where does it get its power from? Would you have a quick-disconnect harness?
 

Take a moment to click through the 29 configurations. Notice anything unusual?

If you can’t figure it out, here it is: As you click on the right arrow, the new vehicle moves in to the left. When it stops, the nose bobs down, just as it does in real-life when you brake. Click on the left arrow, and the new vehicle moves in reverse, with the tail bobbing down as it stops.

I saw it before but didn’t think much about it. It took me until just now to figure out what that meant. Now that I have, I see Slate is putting some real thought into the marketing, not just the manufacturing.
 

Since the reveal, Slate has received 100,000 reservations for the truck. At $50 each, they’ve raised $5,000,000 in just 18 days. The reservation fee is fully refundable if people change their mind.

I don’t have all the stats on reservations for the Cybertruck progressed over time, but here’s what is known:

  • Reserving a Cybertruck initially cost $100, but after they held their delivery event on November 30, 2023, the fee went up to $250. The reservation fee is fully refundable.
  • Reservations began in November 2019, reaching 250,000 on the 26th. Technically, this amount is a “suggestion” by Musk, based on him tweeting “250k” and comparing it to previous tweets.
  • 1 million have been reserved since November 2019, so that equals over $100 million cash up front for Tesla.
  • To proceed onto buying it, Telsa charges a $1000 fee to convert the reservation into an order. This fee is non-refundable. (I’ll give them this. Once you start building one, having the customer back out means Tesla would be out a chunk of money, depending on how far long in the process they were at the time of cancellation, unless that specific vehicle could be sold to a different person.)
  • The range extender battery pack had a reservation fee of $2000. Telsa had to come up with this because the Cybertruck is only rated for 340 miles instead of 500, like was promised by Musk in 2019. That was more money up front for Tesla, until they removed it from their website last month and canceled it May 7, refunding all deposits made for it.
  • Tesla has sold less than 50,000 Cybertrucks. If all of the other people canceled their reservation, Tesla as refunded a minimum of $950,000,000.
  • Tesla is currently sitting on a huge number of unsold completed Cybertrucks.
  • Workers at the Austin Tesla plant were told to either take paid time off for the last week of May, or they can come in for cleaning and training. They will not be working on the Model Y and Cybertruck lines.
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My guess is lidar is more expensive and that’s why he doesn’t want to use it. Also the fact that there’s a camera inside the cabin gives me the heebie-jeebies.

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Love the Slate, been following it for a month or so, guess when everyone else found it.

I could see myself getting one and parking the big truck except when I need it. Question is will my area be able to handle the increased electric load of all these electric vehicles.

The new RamCharger is also very appealing to me, Hybrids sound like a much better idea of a tow vehicle made for cross country travel. And since it’s so much heavier a 13k towing capacity means I can tow like a 2500.

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It’s official. The $7500 tax credit for buying an electric car was axed by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that reduces the budget by over $4 trillion and adds almost that much to the federal deficit during the next decade. The credit will be gone by the end of this year. There might be a distinction on what kind of EV you buy as to whether it’s gone or not. If so, wanna bet it still applies to Teslas?

If you’re interested in buying an electric vehicle, either ignore that credit and look at the cost of the vehicle without it to see if you can afford it, or else buy it quick so you get the credit and hope it’s still in effect when it comes times to file your 2025 taxes.

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I’m not crying about it being gone. EVs double dipping into general auto subsidies and special EV ones has created a market where efficiencies have been ignored in order to collect that good government money, with Tesla leading the way at the slop table.

This does make the Slate 28k now instead of 20k, as well as the other boutique EV makers having to swallow the same pill.

I could get behind a subsidy for high MPG/EV/Hybrid low cost vehicles. Get your total cost under 30k and slap a 5k subsidy on it. Frankly, a 80k EV doesn’t need the subsidy.