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The legend of the ‘Tesla killer’ is not a myth anymore. It came true, and it’s not an electric vehicle from a legacy automaker or a new EV startup; it’s Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO.

In the early days of Tesla, the media loved to use the term ‘Tesla killer’ every time a legacy automaker launched a new EV.

At the time, we scolded them for using it, as they would apply it to electric vehicles that didn’t match Tesla’s performance, production volumes, or profitability.

Sure enough, none of them came even close to negatively affecting Tesla, let alone “killing” the company.

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But things are changing now. Tesla is not growing at an insane pace like it was for a decade. In fact, it’s not growing at all anymore. Tesla’s global sales declined annually for the first time in 2024, and it is starting even worse in 2025.

It is undisputable that the increased EV competition is having an impact, but there isn’t a single EV model that can be deemed a “Tesla killer”—even though we do see a couple of Chinese EVs as having quite an impact on Tesla.

Most Tesla fans, myself included, thought that while Tesla’s market shares would go down amid more EV competition, its sales would continue to grow as EV adoption takes over the industry. That’s exactly what happened for a few years, but the trend reversed in 2024, and it’s not because of EV adoption.

Global EV sales surged by 25% in 2024, while the sales of the biggest EV automaker, Tesla, declined by 1%.

There are many reasons to explain this situation, but there’s one main culprit: Elon Musk.

Musk has been completely delusional about Tesla achieving self-driving capability for years, which led him to neglect the rest of Tesla’s automotive business as he thought that by the end of every year for the last 6 years, Tesla would be able to flip a switch and make all its vehicles self-driving – automatically increasing their value and making them infinitely more competitive than other vehicles.

How did Musk neglect Tesla’s automotive business?

The clearest example is the fact that Tesla launched a single new vehicle in the last 5 years: the Cybertruck, which proved to be a total flop.

Tesla Cybertruck

The Cybertruck launched in 2023 at a much higher price and significantly shorter range than what was promised when unveiled in 2019. With a reservation backlog at over 1 million units, Musk said that he could see Tesla eventually selling 500,000 units a year and Tesla planned for an initial production capacity of 250,000 units a year.

Now, a year and a half into production, Tesla is having issues selling the Cybertruck at 10% of its planned production capacity installed at Gigafactory Texas.

Musk also canceled Tesla’s plan to build a “~$25,000 electric car”, which would have greatly fueled demand and allowed Tesla to grow its delivery volumes. The CEO didn’t believe that the vehicle program would make sense if Tesla solved autonomy. He said in October 2024:

“I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless. It would be silly. It would be completely at odds with what we believe.”

What Musk, and by extension Tesla, believes is that the automaker is on the verge of solving self-driving, but he has thought that to be the case every year for the last 6 years.

There’s no evidence that it is now on the verge of happening, or at least, not on the hardware that Tesla has delivered so far.

It’s clear that this crucial mistake about the timeline of self-driving has led Musk to make many mistakes about how to manage Tesla in the last few years.

For example, Tesla’s decision to remove turn signals and gear shift stalks from vehicles started with Model S and Model X in 2021. The CEO saw them as superfluous in a self-driving world, which he thought was imminent. Now, Model S and Model X sales have crashed.

Tesla brought the same design to the Model 3 with the refresh last year. Seeing the mistake years later, Tesla decided to keep the turn signal stalk with the Model Y refresh this year, and the stalk is rumored to make a comeback on the Model 3.

Perhaps the biggest mistake Musk has made about self-driving is promising that “all Tesla vehicles built since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving” to a level that would enable a robotaxi service, which in SAE self-driving terms would mean level 4-5.

Musk himself has already admitted that Tesla has been wrong about that twice: the automaker had to upgrade Tesla owners having the “2.5 Autopilot computer” to the “3.0 self-driving computer”, which Musk recently admitted will also not be able to get Tesla to self-driving capabilities.

Tesla Full Self-driving computer

He said that Tesla would “painfully” replace the computers in all vehicles of owners who purchased the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software package. However, we noted that Tesla is likely in more trouble than that since it promised that “all Tesla vehicles built since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving” – not just those whose owners bought the FDS package. Considering this greatly affects the resale value of those vehicles, you can make the argument that there are millions of Tesla owners out there who are owed a retrofit or compensation for Tesla’s mistake.

This is a current liability at Tesla worth billions of dollars, and there are already examples of lawsuits about this issue.

These are all management mistakes that ultimately fall on Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO.

Then, there are plenty of mistakes that Musk has made outside of Tesla that is affecting the company. The hard turn to the right, buying Twitter, boosting misinformation and Russian propaganda on the platform, financially backing Donald Trump, joining the administration and slashing critical government program indiscriminately.

Regardless of if you agree or not with Musk’s politics, these are things that you simply shouldn’t do as the face of a major consumer product company as you will undoubtedly anger a large part of your consumer base.

That’s exactly what’s happening.

There are now weekly demonstrations at Tesla stores around the world, and sales are crashing in many markets, especially in those where Musk got politically involved, like Germany, where Tesla sales are down 70% so far this year.

Musk is virtually erasing two decades of hard work to build Tesla’s brand into the world’s leading when it comes to electrification and renewable energy.

Now, for a large part of the population, Tesla is just seen as the piggybank of an out-of-touch oligarch.

Tesla is not dead yet, but if Musk continues to be the face of the company, it looks like it’s certainly going in that direction as this brand issue and declining demand is not going away.

Some of his fans cling to the idea that the automaker is about to solve self-driving, but this belief is largely based on Musk’s claims, which have been consistently wrong.

Now, it’s not to say that Tesla hasn’t made great progress on that front, but if we are to listen to the company’s own goal to be safer than humans, it means achieving “miles between critical disengagement” equivalent to human miles between collisions, which is 700,000 miles, according to NHTSA.

The latest available crowdsource data, a dataset that Musk has positively referred to twice lately, shows that Tesla is currently at about 500 miles between critical disengagement.

Electrek’s Take

While Tesla might not die under Musk, I sincerely think that, at best, it will be a fraction of what it was at its peak, which means no bigger than it is now or in 2023.

Musk’s brand is toxic and doesn’t look to be improving significantly now that he has attached himself to identity politics, culture wars, and Trump.

Looking at Tesla fans and shareholders who still support him, their main hope appears to be self-driving and robots. On the self-driving front, I think it’s delusional to believe that Tesla will solve self-driving on its current hardware.

I think it has made some great progress, which may result in Tesla achieving valuable levels of self-driving on next-generation hardware in the next few years. However, others are on the same path, and you have to balance Tesla’s effort against the giant liability it created for itself by promising it on millions of other vehicles.

As for the robots, I’m actually somewhat bullish on humanoid robots, and I do believe that Tesla has some competitive advantage on that front. However, it’s foolish to think they will simply leapfrog the competition, which is significant in the sector.

Tesla’s core business remains selling cars and batteries. There’s no doubt that the business of selling cars is not going well for Tesla right now, and under Musk, there’s no clear path to improvement. The energy business is booming, but margins are falling, and competition is increasing—especially from companies like CATL and BYD, which supply the cells that Tesla uses for its stationary batteries.

On the car side, Tesla is indeed planning to launch cheaper cars this year, but that plan was a pivot after Musk canceled the “$25,000 Tesla.” These new vehicles are expected to be built on the same platform as Model 3 and Model Y, so they will be closer to these models and cannibalize them.

I’d be surprised if they are enough to avoid Telsa from having its annual deliveries decline again this year.

I have been saying this for a while, but it’s time for Elon to go.

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US military is buying Tesla Cybertrucks to use as targets for missiles

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3 hours ago

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August 7, 2025

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US military is buying Tesla Cybertrucks to use as targets for missiles

Elon Musk is getting his wish; Tesla Cybertrucks are going to be used by the US military, but perhaps not in the way he intended.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to purchase two Tesla Cybertrucks and use them for what amounts to target practice.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has touted the Cybertruck as being “bulletproof” and designed to “survive the apocalypse.” He suggested it could be used by the military and even directly pitched the electric pickup truck to the US military.

Considering that the Cybertruck has turned out to be a commercial flop and Tesla is currently experiencing issues selling it, despite reduced production, the automaker could benefit from a Cybertruck order from the US military.

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It looks like it is about to get one.

According to new documents first obtained by ‘The War Zone‘, the U.S. Air Force Test Center (AFTC) is looking to acquire 33 target vehicles—including two Tesla Cybertrucks—for delivery to the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico,

The list of requested vehicles includes various sedans, pickups, SUVs, and bongo trucks, but there are no specific brand requirements for those, except for the Cybertrucks.

They plan to use these vehicles as targets for precision-guided weapons. Why would they need a specific vehicle such as the Cybertruck?

In the document, they had to explain the reason behind requesting a vehicle from a specific brand. They wrote:

[Redacted] intends to use specific Tesla manufactured vehicles for target vehicle training flight test events. In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cyber trucks as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact. Testing needs to mirror real world situations. The intent of the training is to prep the units for operations by simulating scenarios as closely as possible to the real world situations.

It sounds like the justification is that the US military believes that its enemies might start using the Tesla Cybertruck, and it wants to make sure its weapons work on it.

Here’s the document in question:

Electrek’s Take

That’s pretty funny. The US military is buying Tesla Cybertrucks to use as targets to shoot missiles at because they think enemies might start using them.

The jokes write themselves. You read that headline, and you would think that it’s Trump trying to get back to Musk by literally blowing up his dumpster of a truck.

However, the most astonishing aspect is that the US military is not wrong here.

As we previously reported, Chechen leader and self-proclaimed “Putin’s foot soldier” Ramzan Kadyrov managed to obtain a couple of Cybertrucks, which he outfitted with guns. Then he claimed that they went to war in Ukraine.

Now, less than a year later, the US military wants to ensure it is equipped to take down Cybertrucks.

Anyway, good for Tesla. It needs all the Cybertruck sales it can get, considering it is currently selling them at a rate of 20,000 per year when Musk aimed for 500,000 a year.

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Genesis quietly dropped this EV from its US lineup

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7 hours ago

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August 6, 2025

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Genesis quietly dropped this EV from its US lineup

Genesis-EV-US

The Genesis Electrified G80 will no longer be sold in the US. Genesis has already pulled the luxury EV sedan from its website.

Genesis pulls the Electrified G80 EV from its US lineup

The Electrified G80 went on sale in the US in the first half of 2023, but has struggled to gain any momentum. Last year, Genesis introduced an updated model with longer range, more interior space, and added luxury, claiming it’s now at the flagship level.

Those in the US may never get to see it. Genesis has already removed the Electrified G80 from its website, with only the GV60 and Electrified GV70 now listed.

The luxury car maker confirmed to Car and Driver on Wednesday that the electric G80 sedan is no longer being offered in North America.

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Genesis explained that “the customer is at the core of every decision we make, and we remain flexible as we adapt to ever-changing consumer needs and market conditions.”

Genesis-G80-EV-US
Genesis Electrified G80 updated model (Source: Hyundai)

The 2024 Electrified G80 was the final model year, and the 2025 version was never sold in the US. Powered by an 87 kWh battery, the Electrified G80 was rated with an EPA-estimated range of 282 miles. Although the updated model boasted a larger battery (94.5 kWh) with increased range (up to 295 miles) in Korea, it still falls short of rivals like the Lucid Air or Tesla Model S.

Genesis sold just 397 models in 2024 and another 77 in the first half of 2025. In comparison, Lucid sold over 5,000 Air sedans in H1, while Tesla has sold 2,715 Model S sedans in the US.

Genesis-Electrified-G80-interior
The interior of the new Genesis Electrified G80 update (Source: Hyundai)

Although Korean automakers, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, dodged the maximum 25% tariff, they will still face a 15% duty on imported vehicles. As its slowest-selling EV, it’s no surprise to see Genesis dropping it from its lineup.

With the $7,500 federal tax credit expiring at the end of September, Genesis is pushing big discounts on its remaining EV models.

Genesis is offering an $18,000 EV Lease Bonus on the 2025 Electrified GV70 and $13,750 bonus for the 2025 GV60. Leases currently start as low as $389 per month.

Looking to test one out for yourself? You can use our links below to view 2025 Genesis GV60 and Electrified GV70 models in your area.

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Bluetti’s new Elite 30 V2 288Wh station gets first savings starting from $199, Segway F3 smart eKickScooter $750, NIU e-scooter sale, more

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7 hours ago

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August 6, 2025

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Bluetti's new Elite 30 V2 288Wh station gets first savings starting from 9, Segway F3 smart eKickScooter 0, NIU e-scooter sale, more

Headlining today’s Green Deals is the first discount hitting Bluetti’s new Elite 30 V2 Portable Power Station, which also has an additional solar bundle offer starting from $199. We also spotted the first post-tariff discount from Segway on its new Ninebot F3 Electric KickScooter to $750, as well as NIU’s Fan-tastic Day Sale that is taking up to 42% off its KQi lineup of scooters, including the KQi 300X All-Terrain Suspension Electric Scooter that is back at the best price of 2025 for $750, among others. We also have a new low price on Greenworks’ 82V Commercial 20-inch Cordless Chainsaw kit and a one-day-only discount on Worx’s 12A 7.5-inch Edger/Trencher, and more waiting for you below. Plus, all the hangover savings are at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Anker SOLIX Summer Power Sale offers, Ride1Up’s increased e-bike savings, 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.

Get up to $200 in first savings on Bluetti’s new Elite 30 V2 portable 288Wh LiFePO4 power station starting from $199

Back on Friday, Bluetti launched its new Apex 300 Versatile Power Station with up to $3,150 in exclusive savings that has had fans of the brand buzzing, while also eclipsing another new and more compact release. Now, with its latest Solar Generator Sale, Bluetti is cutting the cost on its Elite 30 V2 Portable Power Station to $199 shipped, with that price matching at Amazon for Prime members, bringing it down from the $299 price tag. It just hit the market at the top of the month, but as I said, its release was overshadowed by the larger and more expansive Apex 300 unit and its bundles. You can score a $100 markdown now, though, which sets the bar for future discounts, with a solar bundle option for this model that tacks on a 100W panel for $398 shipped, down from $598.

While larger solar generator setups can help through many situations, more and more people are finding convenience in owning smaller backup power solutions, especially here in NYC, with many folks having limited space to keep them. That’s where units like Bluetti’s Elite 30 V2 Portable Power Station come in, which offers a 288Wh LiFePO4 capacity to cover personal device charging with 600W of steady output that can ramp as high as 1,500W.

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Bluetti’s Elite 30 V2 power station has nine different port options to cover all the bases: two AC outlets, two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, two DC ports, and a car port. It even beats out many counterparts/competitors of the same size range with five ways to recharge its battery: via a standard outlet, utilizing up to a max 200W solar input, using both an outlet and solar panels together, connecting a generator, or using your car’s auxiliary port.

You can get the full rundown on Bluetti’s other new and more expansive release, the Apex 300 Versatile Power Station with up to $3,150 in exclusive savings across several bundle options – all starting from $1,439.

man riding down street on Segway Ninebot F3 Electric KickScooter

Segway’s Ninebot F3 smart eKickScooter with Apple Find My + proximity locking gets first post-tariff cut to $750

Segway is offering a special promotional discount through August 17 on its new Ninebot F3 Electric KickScooter at $749.99 shipped, after using the code F3AUG100OFF at checkout, which beats out Amazon’s pricing by $50.This model launched back in April carrying a $850 original price tag (which Amazon still keeps it listed for) and has since hiked up to a $1,000 MSRP direct from the brand after May’s tariff hikes. The two pre-tariff discounts we saw took the costs down to $700 and $600 back in April, and while it may not be falling that low any anytime soon again, you’re still looking at a solid $100 savings from its starting rate for the third-lowest price we have tracked.

If you want to learn more about this model, be sure to check out our original coverage of this ongoing deal here.

man standing on NIU KQi 300X all-terrain suspension electric scooter

NIU drops the KQi 300X all-terrain e-scooter with a 37-mile range and regen brakes to $750 in latest sale

NIU has launched its Fan-tastic Day Sale through August 17 that is taking up to 42% off its KQi e-scooter lineup. Some of the brand’s models are still out of stock from last month, but among those still available, we spotted the KQi 300X All-Terrain Suspension Electric Scooter at $749.99 shipped, while also matching in price at Amazon. While it carries a $1,299 MSRP normally, at Amazon we’ve been seeing it mostly staying between $1,049 and $1,198, with discounts having been slowly ramping up over the course of the year. You’re looking at the best price of 2025, which saves you $549 off the MSRP and has only been beaten out by the $731 low we last saw pop up in October 2024.

If you want to learn more about this model or the other e-scooter deals, be sure to check out our original coverage of this sale here.

man uses Greenworks 82V 20-inch cordless chainsaw to fell tree

Add commercial-grade power to your arsenal with Greenworks’ 82V 20-inch cordless chainsaw at a new $430 low

Amazon is now offering the Greenworks Commercial 82V 20-inch Cordless Chainsaw for $429.99 shipped. While it carries a $600 MSRP tag directly from the brand, where it’s currently priced at, we’ve seen it keep lower to $500 at Amazon. It’s been on the market for six months now, with the discounts we’ve spotted only taken the costs down to $450 until today. Now, with the 20% markdown here, you’ll save $70 while equipping your arsenal with commercial-grade power.

If you want to learn more about this commercial-grade chainsaw, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

Worx's 12A 7.5-inch Lawn Edger/Trencher creating perfect line into lawn

Keep uniform lines around yard and gardens with Worx’s 12A 7.5-inch edger/trencher at $90 (Today only)

As part of its Deals of the Day, Best Buy is offering the Worx 12A 7.5-inch Edger/Trencher for $89.99 shipped, with this model being out of stock on Amazon and sitting at a higher $140 MSRP directly from Worx’s website. It normally fetches $130 at full price here, with discounts mostly keeping the costs between $110 and $100 during 2025, though we have seen it go as low as $75 during Prime Day. You’re looking at the fourth-lowest overall price that we have tracked and the third-lowest of the year, with the deal today saving you $40 off the going rate for the rest of the day only.

If you want to learn more about this edger/trencher, be sure to check out our original coverage of this one-day-only deal here.

Best Summer 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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