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7 months ago

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Tesla (TSLA) montreal

I fully divested from Tesla (TSLA), selling all my shares. I’m going to try to explain why. At Electrek, we like to be clear about our biases rather than claim we have none.

I’ve followed Tesla since 2008 and invested in the company after it went public in 2010. I started writing about EVs, and especially Tesla, full-time in 2015.

I invested in the stock mainly because I fully supported Tesla’s mission to accelerate the advent of electric transportation. I thought then, and still do today, that a combination of battery-powered vehicles, with the ethical sourcing of raw battery materials, battery recycling, and renewable electricity production to power electric vehicles, is the only solution to making the transportation sector long-term sustainable while decarbonizing it.

Over the years, I had become a fan of electric vehicles, but I was clueless about how they could become mainstream until I read Elon Musk’s 2006 ‘Tesla secret master plan’. The plan made sense to me: make a high-end electric vehicle that is uncompromising against its gas-powered counterparts. Once you prove that it can be done, make increasingly cheaper and higher-volume EV models with the same approach.

That sounds simple, but it was a difficult task from an engineering perspective. Either way, it seemed to be the only way to meaningfully move the industry toward battery-electric vehicles.

On top of Musk’s blog post, which Tesla has recently removed from its website, I was also convinced by lectures given by Tesla’s original two co-founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

While these guys have been forgotten by many as part of Tesla’s history, partly due to Musk’s own effort, I credit them as early pioneers of the electric revolution. They were great early communicators of the feasibility of electrifying the auto industry and the necessity to do it.

Not without hurdles, Tesla did it. I am not going to recap Tesla’s entire incredible history, but the company was successful in convincing the world and the auto industry that electric vehicles are here, here to stay, and the future of the industry — something that most were denying less than a decade ago.

Tesla engineered and designed several highly competitive and attractive EV products, managed to ramp them up to millions of units, and forced the rest of the industry to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in electric vehicles.

This was possible due to a lot of different factors. A lot:

  • The vision of Tesla’s early leadership
  • Elon Musk’s early funding and leadership
  • The incredible talent that the mission attracted, including many early employees that became critical to Tesla, like JB Straubel, Drew Baglino, Deepak Ahuja, Franz von Holzhausen, and many more
  • The support of early investors like Antonio Gracias, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jeff Skoll, and Steve Jurvetson, among others
  • The support from other automakers, like Daimler and Toyota, who both invested in Tesla at a critical time
  • Government support was a big one, especially California’s support. California regulations, which spread to other states in the US known as ‘CARB states’, were critical in Tesla’s early success and were also factors in Daimler and Toyota’s investments as the automakers made deals with Tesla to help them produce EVs to comply with the state regulations. Later, the federal EV tax credit helped, the IRA helped, the solar tax credit, and more also helped.
  • The support from passionate owners
  • The support from passionate retail investors

I’m most likely forgetting some factors, but these are some of the most important ones, in my opinion.

Many will say that they weren’t equally important, and that might be true, but I seriously doubt that Tesla would have survived if you removed any of these factors.

If you contributed to any of these factors, it’s my personal opinion that you should be proud to have contributed to the electrification of the auto industry.

The Shift

In the last few years, Tesla has become a widely different company. My main issue with this shift is that I no longer feel like the original mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport or renewable energy is a priority.

Now, it’s all about AI, self-driving, and robots.

I’m not saying that those things are wrong or that they will not happen. I think all these technologies are important and will transform the world, but it’s simply not what I invested in.

I would also argue that Tesla is not the same company, which makes sense since the company is no longer about its mission.

That’s my main issue. It can’t be more evident than Tesla’s EV deliveries tracking down year-over-year for the first time in a decade, Musk canceling EV programs in favor of Robotaxi, and even the CEO going as far as saying that “Tesla is worth nothing without self-driving.”

My other issue is the leadership. I don’t trust Elon Musk anymore. I think a combination of social media addiction and the cult of personality around him has broken his feedback loop and set him on the wrong path.

I think he disqualified himself from running Tesla or any public company when he started threatening to breach his fiduciary duty to shareholders if he didn’t get 25% control over Tesla.

On top of my distrust of the CEO, I think that his own changes in the last few years, combined with the shift away from the mission, have driven a lot of the rest of the leadership away:

As part of my job, I track the comings and goings of top talent at Tesla very closely, and in the last few years, I’ve seen tons of high-level departures and very few new top hires.

There’s still a lot of great talent at Tesla, I’m not denying that, but I think it’s also clear that there has been a significant talent exodus at Tesla, especially over the last year.

Despite these issues becoming clear to me over the last few years, I remained a shareholder because I naively thought things could go back to normal. I thought maybe Musk would wake up from his social media-fueled madness, or shareholders would give him the boot.

This brings me to my next issue: I am becoming unaligned with the majority of Tesla shareholders.

It couldn’t have been clearer when 73% of them voted to reinstate Musk’s ~$50 billion compensation package without any change after a legal discovery process showed that the board and the CEO didn’t follow due process in getting the original shareholder vote.

Some greedy lawyers and a courageous judge gave Tesla shareholders an opportunity to tell Musk and Tesla’s board that the company deserves proper governance and not be “run like a family business,” as Tesla’s largest independent investor said.

The timing was incredible. The opportunity came right after:

  • Musk threatened shareholders to not build products he himself claimed were critical to Tesla if he didn’t get 25% of the company
  • He sold tens of billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to buy Twitter, said he would stop selling and yet kept going
  • He entirely lost his mind for a while and challenged Mark Zuckerberg to an MMA fight, then chickened out (I thought this was all a joke at first, and it might have been at first, but it undoubtedly became not a joke)
  • Musk seemed completely uninterested in Tesla for about a year, when he was running Twitter, SpaceX, Neurallink, the Boring Company, and xAI – with many of those companies recruiting from Tesla. Then, he returned and fired 15-20% of the company, including the entire charging team for no good reason.
  • Finally, he canceled the stock options of Tesla employees

The last one was a big one for me. Musk had just canceled the stock options for Tesla employees just a month before the judge’s decision to rescind his own stock option package. Right after the judge’s decision, Musk got interested in Tesla again, started talking about the company more, and, of course, started to fight to get his own stock options back.

In his view, his stock options are essential, but those of Tesla employees? Less so.

I thought that Tesla shareholders would see the hypocrisy in this. They would see that Musk has become a burden at Tesla more than an asset.

Instead, despite all those factors, Tesla shareholders convinced themselves that it was “the right thing to do” to give more money to the wealthiest man in the world. Not only that, they made “lists” of shareholders who said they were voting against the package and told them to go ‘f*ck’ themselves and that they wouldn’t be part of the Tesla community anymore.

I don’t want to be a part of that anymore. I still love many of Tesla’s products and I will keep reporting on them, but I am completely unaligned with the investor base, so I don’t think it makes sense for me to be a shareholder anymore.

Finally, and for full disclosure, the last reason why I sold has nothing to do with Tesla. I see a lot of signs that we are entering a recession. I prefer to be more liquid in those situations, and Tesla is up 10% in two days for seemingly no reason, so it felt like a good time to get out since I don’t feel aligned with shareholders.

I sincerely hope the best for them, though. I know that many of them are well-intentioned people. That said, I recommend caution as I think you are also in the company of low-moral individuals who are poisoning the TSLA community.

FSD side note: what if Tesla does solve self-driving? I am mentioning it because I know this is something that keeps a lot of people in, but there’s no FOMO for this MOFO. If it happens, it happens. I’ll celebrate it and shed a tear for my wallet.

I’m the first to admit that if Tesla can solve self-driving with its approach, it would result in unprecedented value creation, but I am simply not convinced that this will happen anytime soon or before others can solve it.

Why? As a Tesla shareholder, you have two options: take Elon at his word or trust the data.

For the reasons mentioned above, I don’t trust what Elon says, so we can forget about the former.

As for the latter, despite Tesla now openly using miles between interventions as a metric to track FSD progress, the automaker has never released this data. This is a giant red flag.

For the data, we have to rely on our own experience with the system and the experience of others. I’ve had Tesla FSD for years and I’ve been impressed at times and unimpressed other times. The only thing I’m certain of based on my experience is that it is currently nothing close to an unsupervised self-driving system.

We can also use the crowdsourced data, which is limited, but the best we have since Tesla refuses to release its own:

The average of the v12.5.1 versions, the latest to be released, is 32 miles between disengagement and 128 miles between critical disengagement.

This compares to 30 miles between disengagement and 189 miles between critical disengagement for v12.3.6, which is the last FSD version that went into a wide release earlier this year.

Elon is talking about 3x that this month and maybe 6x that next month. He has been consistently wrong about these predictions, but even if he was right, most experts are talking about 400x to 1,000x needed to achieve an unsupervised robotaxi service.

Even with exponential growth, this will take way longer than what Elon is claiming right now. Then, it needs to make that work on the current hardware and the HW3, which is already running a smaller model than HW4.

If the Tesla investment thesis relies on this program to work, which is what Elon himself is saying, it’s a pass for me.

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Save $300 on new Anker eufy E15 & E18 robot mowers, NIU KQi 200F e-scooter at $699 in pre-sale, EGO pressure washer, more

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April 11, 2025

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Save 0 on new Anker eufy E15 & E18 robot mowers, NIU KQi 200F e-scooter at 9 in pre-sale, EGO pressure washer, more

We’re closing out this week’s Green Deals with two new arrivals onto the market, leading with the $300 discounts on Anker’s new, advanced eufy E15 and E18 Robot Lawn Mowers that require no boundary wires or RTK stations and are starting from $1,300. Right behind is NIU’s pre-sale offer on its latest KQi 200F Electric Scooter for $699 and also coming with some free gear ahead of its future shipping date. We also spotted the popular EGO Power+ 56V 3,200 PSI Cordless Pressure Washer alongside two 6.0Ah batteries hitting a new $699 low, as well as Amazon undercutting Anker’s Easter Sale pricing on the SOLIX C200 60,000mAh Power Station to $110, along with its 90,000mAh counterparts. Plus, all the other hangover Green Deals are in the links at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Rad Power Earth Day e-bike Sale kickoff, the exclusive refurbished Anker SOLIX F3800 power station deal, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Take $300 off Anker’s new eufy E15 and E18 robot lawn mowers that require no wires or RTK station from $1,300

Anker’s official sub-brand, eufy is now offering the best savings yet on its new E15 Robot Lawn Mower for $1,299.99 shipped, as well as its counterpart E18 Robot Lawn Mower at $1,699.99 shipped, after using the promo code RTLM200 for either at checkout. These models just recently hit the market a few days ago for $1,600 and $2,000, respectively, with some places like Amazon currently offering $200 off the price, but you can score an additional $100 here direct from the brand by replacing the on-page coupon with the code. This knocks a total of $300 off the going rate, giving you one of the most advanced autonomous mowing solutions at the best current prices we can find.

These advanced eufy robot lawn mowers require no boundary wires or RTK station to stay on track, instead utilizing pure vision FSD tech with high-precision cameras and advanced AI to guide itself around your yard, with the E15 model covering up to 0.2 acres on a charge and the E18 model bumping that up to 0.3 acres. The brand promises a quick “5-minute setup” right out of the box, all done through its companion app, where you’ll also have a wide array of smart controls to monitor its progress, adjust settings, and manage multi-zone areas with the 3D maps that it creates as it works.

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The 3D perception system on eufy’s robot lawn mowers detect and avoid collisions with everyday obstacles that it may come across, even in complex garden environments, while the smart coverage detection “guarantees no area is left uncut.” Those with pets or regular wildlife running around can also rest assured, as its systems will ensure their safety while in operation. You’ll be able to set its cutting height between 25mm to 75mm, with it operating at a quieter 56dB level and able to handle up to 40% inclines without concern. Beyond the controls you’ll have through your smartphone, the robot can also detect rainfall and/or when the sun sets, activating its automatic station return function. On top of that, there’s even the security system that activates an alarm when removed from its set work area while providing you with GPS tracking to hunt it down.

NIU KQi 200F electric scooter

Commute around town for up to 34 miles on NIU’s latest KQi 200F electric scooter at $699 with free gear while in pre-sale

NIU is currently taking up to 41% off a collection of its e-scooters led by a pre-sale deal on its latest KQi 200F Electric Scooter for $699 shipped with some additional free gear. This new model is slated to begin shipping on April 25 carrying a $799 price tag, but you can score the first cash savings here today while this deal lasts. Not only are you getting $100 shaved off the tag, but you’ll also be getting a free phone holder and Halo drawstring bag (valued at $52) on top of that. Head below to learn more about what this new commuting solution offers while also checking out the other models benefitting from price cuts.

A solid choice for commuters who want the option to go further than their usual cruising grounds, the NIU KQi 200F electric scooter has been given a 350W motor that peaks to 700W in order to tackle up to 20% inclines at speeds up to 20 MPH, as well as a 365Wh battery that provides you with up to 33.6 miles of travel on a full charge. There are four riding modes to choose from – e-save, sport, custom, and pedestrian – plus, the scooter comes with an IPX5 rating to protect against splashes, light rain, and even low-pressure water from any direction.

There are some solid features added in too that only further heighten the riding experience, especially the dual braking system that has a 75mm integrated drum brake in the front and a regenerative brake in the rear to recycle kinetic energy upon slowing or braking to extend travel times. There’s also the brand’s BMS system with 14 types of protection, front suspension, 10-inch tubeless pneumatic tires, wider handlebars that can fold while also offering turn signal functionality, a Halo headlight, an integrated taillight with brake lighting, a 265-pound rider payload, swappable griptape, a mechanical bell, and a LED display. What’s more, there are some app-supported smart controls, including customizable performance settings, charging limitations, and the option to lock your scooter for added security, among others.

NIU’s full lineup of KQi e-scooter deals:

EGO Power+ 56V 3,200 PSI cordless electric pressure washer

Connect a hose or siphon with EGO’s 56V 3,200 PSI cordless pressure washer kit (two 6.0Ah batteries) at new $699 low

Amazon is now offering the EGO Power+ 56V 3,200 PSI Cordless Pressure Washer with two 6.0Ah batteries at $699 shipped. Back during July we saw this model fall from its original $899 MSRP to its new $800 rate, where it stayed put except for a short-lived $50 discount in mid-December and a drop to $700 during Amazon’s previous Big Spring Sale last month. The deal that’s coming in today takes things $1 under our previous mention, giving you $101 in savings at a new all-time low price. If you already have a stockpile of EGO batteries, you can score the pressure washer alone for $499 instead.

Sporting EGO’s peak power tech that utilizes two batteries at once for longer performance, this cordless electric pressure washer will run for up to 60 minutes with the two included 6.0Ah models here, which can easily be swapped out for any of the brand’s other ARC batteries. It delivers some powerful pressure at up to 3,200 PSI with a flow rate ranging from 1.2 to 2.0 GPM and three operating modes: Eco, High, and Turbo.

Its versatile design sports three connection points – one for your garden hose to attach, one for the wand, and then a third that can be utilized by an included siphon hose that you can drop into any fresh water source if you’re not around any spigots. You’ll also be getting five varying nozzles, a 25-foot high-pressure hose, a foam cannon, and a filter – plus, there’s an integrated display on the wand so you can keep track of battery levels as you work.

We recently spotted EGO’s advanced 56V 22-inch Select Cut Self-Propelled Cordless Lawn Mower coming with a 10.0Ah and 5.0Ah battery at a new $1,000 low, which saves you $998 from purchasing the combination separately.

Anker SOLIX C200 60,000mAh power station

Amazon undercuts Anker’s Easter Sale on the SOLIX C200 60,000mAh power station at $110

By way of its official Amazon storefront, Anker is undercutting its own Easter Sale pricing on the SOLIX C200 60,000mAh Power Station at $109.99 shipped. Normally going for $170 at full price since it released back at the tail-end of August, we’ve mainly been seeing it fall to either $110 or the $100 low at Amazon since Black Friday, with the brand’s ongoing direct Easter Sale currently offering it at $10 higher. With the deal here, you’re getting a solid $60 slashed from the going rate, giving you the second-lowest price we have tracked. Be sure to head below to check out more on this model, as well as the deals on the larger 90,000mAh counterparts.

Anker’s newer SOLIX C200 DC power station comes in a more compact form factor built upon the success of the C300 DC and AC models, with a 60,000mAh/192Wh LiFePO4 capacity. The unit provides up to 300W of power output to connected devices through its five ports – two USB-As, one 140W USB-C, one 15W USB-C, and a car port – which covers your personal devices while out and on the go. The power station’s battery can be recharged by three different means, with either the 100W maximum solar input or the car port providing you with an 80% battery in 1.6 hours and its 140W USB-C port reaching the same amount a little faster at 1.3 hours.

Of course, if you want to go bigger you can currently find the SOLIX C300 DC and SOLIX C300 AC power stations down at $170 and $219, respectively, with the former matching Anker’s direct sale while the latter comes in $1 under that sale’s pricing. They both provide 90,000mAh LiFePO4 capacities to cover device charging needs, with up to 300W outputs and some port differences and variations of built-in lighting while your out camping in the wilds. The DC model sports seven ports (two 140W USB-Cs, one 100W USB-C, one 15W USB-C, two 12W USB-As, and one 120W car port) while the AC model has eight ports (three 300W ACs, two 140W USB-Cs, one 15W USB-A, one 12W USB-A, and one 120W car port).

Be sure to check out the full, massive lineup of deals from Anker’s SOLIX Easter Sale that is running through April 20, with up to 54% off in initial discounts and some free gear going along with select model purchases. We also just secured an exclusive $680 in savings on the brand’s refurbished SOLIX F3800 power station at $1,999 while it lasts.

Best New Year EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.

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Want to trade in your Tesla? Here are 4 good conquest rebates

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3 hours ago

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April 11, 2025

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Want to trade in your Tesla? Here are 4 good conquest rebates

conquest rebates

Thinking about trading in your Tesla (or any other EV) for something new? This month, automakers are handing out up to $5,000 in conquest rebates to lure you over to their side. Even better: these offers usually stack with other discounts. Here are four of the best deals worth checking out.

Acura ZDX conquest rebate deal

If you drive a competing EV, Acura’s ready to tempt you with $4,000 off the all-electric 2024 ZDX. Some buyers are reportedly snagging discounts of up to 40% off the MSRP of $64,500 in certain parts of the US. The national conquest deal runs through the end of April.

Click here to find a local dealer that may have the Acura ZDX in stock. –trusted affiliate link

BMW i5, i7, iX conquest rebate deal

BMW-i5-Touring

If you’re driving an EV or plug-in hybrid from a rival brand like Tesla, Rivian, or Mercedes, you can score a $1,000 conquest bonus from BMW when you switch to an all-electric i5, i7, or iX. The deal is available US-wide through April 30.

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Click here to find a local dealer that may have the BMW i5 in stock. –trusted affiliate link

Hyundai IONIQ 5 competitive owner coupon

Hyundai-$20-billion-EVs-US

If you own or lease a non-Hyundai vehicle, you can cash in on a special Competitive Owner Coupon when you lease or buy a 2025 IONIQ 5, and this deal stacks. This conquest cash incentive ranges from $500 to $2,500 depending on the model you purchase or lease, and whether you purchase or lease. The offer’s live now on both coasts and runs through April 30.

Click here to find a local dealer that may have the Hyundai IONIQ 5 in stock. –trusted affiliate link

Polestar 3 Tesla conquest bonus

Polestar-3-delivered

If you’re ready to jump ship from your Tesla, Polestar’s got a seriously tempting offer: Switch to a 2025 Polestar 3 and pocket $5,000. Lease it, and things get even sweeter – you can stack that with Polestar’s $15,000 lease cash for a wild $20,000 off. The deal’s good nationwide through April 30.

Thanks to CarsDirect

If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

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BYD is about to launch another low-cost EV: Here’s our first look at the e7 electric sedan

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3 hours ago

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April 11, 2025

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BYD is about to launch another low-cost EV: Here's our first look at the e7 electric sedan

BYD-e7-affordable-EV

Another day, another BYD EV? The world’s largest EV maker is on a roll, seemingly launching a new model every day. After unveiling its new midsize electric sedan, the e7, BYD gave us our first official look at yet another stylish EV.

BYD reveals new e7 electric sedan

BYD is on an EV launch spree. After taking the global auto market by storm last year, the company has even bigger plans for 2025.

In the past month, BYD launched a new electric car across a few key segments as it looks to extend its lead. Two midsize BYD models, the Qin L EV sedan and the Sealion 05 SUV, hit the market. Both are equipped with BYD’s “God’s Eye” smart driving system and start under $17,000 in China.

BYD also launched its first ultra-luxury electric sedan, the Yangwang U7, last month, with prices starting under $90,000.

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Earlier this week, the company launched its first EV models, the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV, based on its new ultra-fast charging Super e-platform. The new models can add nearly 250 miles of driving range in 5 minutes, and both can be bought for under $30,000 in China.

BYD-e7-affordable-EV
BYD e7 midsize electric sedan (Source: BYD)

Now, BYD is preparing to launch another midsize pure electric sedan. This week, BYD revealed the first official images of the e7, which is expected to be another affordable EV option.

The e7’s wheelbase is 2,820 mm, which is about the same as that of a Tesla Model 3, which is 2,875 mm. Although no other details were shared, other than the company saying it can’t wait to unlock “a new driving experience for everyone,” a few design clues give us an idea of what to expect when it launches.

BYD-e7-affordable-EV
BYD-e7-affordable-EV

Unlike many of its new models with flush door handles, the e7 is shown with traditional ones. It also has split head and rear taillights rather than the popular full-length light bar that appears on other BYD EVs.

According to CarNewsChina, BYD’s e-series models are affordable cars, many of which are used for taxi services.

BYD-e7-affordable-EV
BYD-e7-affordable-EV

However, it’s now part of its Ocean lineup, which includes a few EVs you may be familiar with, like the Dolphin, Seal, and Seal-U. Although no date has been set, the e7 will join the lineup soon.

Official data released in China revealed the e7 is 4,780 mm long, 1,900 mm wide, and 1,515 mm tall, or about the same size as the Tesla Model 3 (4,720 mm long, 1,933 mm wide, and 1,441 mm tall). We’ll have to wait for an official driving range, but we do know it will use a lower-cost LFP battery.

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