Tesla’s brand loyalty levels dropped from the best in the industry to fairly middling results, according to new data from S&P Global Mobility, and it’s all because of the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.
S&P Global Mobility tracks sales data across the automotive industry, and its new customer loyalty numbers are out, shared with Reuters this morning.
The numbers show a troubling trend for Tesla, and a historic drop in customer loyalty for the brand that long held the #1 title in that space.
According to the Reuters story, S&P’s numbers show that Tesla customer loyalty peaked at 73% in June 2024, but took a “nosedive” in the next month, and ended up bottoming out in March at 49.9%. That means about a third of Tesla owners who would have bought another Tesla decided to buy another brand as well.
S&P’s data is not based on surveys, but rather household-level data of which cars each household is buying.
Tesla’s loyalty since recovered to 57.4% in May, the most recent month included in the S&P data, still far less than its previous peak.
As can be seen in the graph above, Tesla was in a league of its own consistently. There were only single months where any other brand might have matched Tesla’s brand loyalty numbers over the course of the last several years – and this held true consistently in the period before S&P’s chart as well, as we at Electrek have coveredmanytimesinthepast.
The drop from 73% to 49.9% even put Tesla briefly below the industry average, something which the company has never seen before. Even after recovery, Tesla is no longer in its first-place-by-a-long-shot position, and now behind Chevy and Ford and about the same level as Toyota.
Tom Libby, an analyst with S&P, was quoted by Reuters as saying he’s “never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time.”
Another metric, customer defections, also showed trouble for Tesla. Customer defections show how many more households are switching from another brand to buy your brand, compared to the number of households switching from your brand to another.
Tesla’s customer defection numbers were “in a different stratosphere” to the rest of the industry for a long period of time. From 2020-2024, Tesla on average acquired five times more customers than it lost to other brands. The next-highest performers were Genesis at 2.8 and Kia/Hyundai at 1.5/1.4.
It makes sense that Tesla would gain more customers than it loses, given that it was and is a relatively new and growing brand. If people are switching to an EV, there’s a good chance they’ll switch to a Tesla since that’s the most well-known EV brand and is widely available. But Tesla’s numbers were really high.
But since July 2024, the defections have dropped significantly. Now, Tesla is below 2, a more than 60% drop in its defection rate, and putting it back in touch with the rest of the industry.
Further, it has been eclipsed by other brands – and not just startup EV brands who have the advantage of being new and thus naturally having a high conquest rate. Rivian, Polestar, Porsche and Cadillac all now exceed Tesla’s defection rate.
These poor results track alongside Tesla’s recent sales results, which have been dropping in just about every territory, even doing damage to the entire EV market as a result.
Today’s results, and Tesla’s recent poorearnings, spell trouble for Tesla, showing how Musk’s influence are damaging the high-flying company, which has always been treated as an exception in the industry (and in the stock market) due to its exceptional results across several customer and growth metrics.
Now, Tesla’s results are no longer exceptional – or rather, they’re exceptional in the opposite direction, with Tesla being one of few EV brands with falling sales in a rising global EV market.
But despite the trouble all of this spells for Tesla, it seems like it’s not spelling trouble for Musk himself. Even though he’s the reason that Tesla is crashing in the first place, the Tesla board just rewarded him with $26 billion today – a payday with more money for a single bad employee than Tesla has made in any year over its entire history, even as Tesla’s profits have been drastically declining this year as a result of Musk’s actions.
Electrek’s Take
We’ve previously covered how embarrassed owners have been modifying their cars with bumper stickers or badges to separate themselves from the image that Musk has built for the company. But now we have data showing just how many of them have stopped buying Teslas.
And it’s not just affecting prospective customers, but the customers who know how good the company’s cars are, and who had previously returned to buying Teslas in industry-leading numbers, and yet can’t stomach coming back because Musk is just so comically bad.
It would be interesting to see more from the graph above. We’re betting the numbers before Jan 2022 might have been even higher, as Musk’s public advocacy had already taken a turn towards the bizarre as he fell deeper into his twitter addiction.
But it’s clear what the biggest catalyst is – Musk’s ill-considered idea to give hundreds of millions of dollars to one of the dumbest people on the planet – someone who Musk himself had previously correctly said was “not good for America or the world.”
To be clear, Musk has always been relatively outspoken. But there were times where he was able to limit his advocacy to some more reasonable positions, stay somewhat more on message about the importance of fighting climate change (not anymore…), and stay out of the more obviously partisan political nonsense.
General wisdom does state that CEOs shouldn’t be too divisive, because dividing your customer base will only lead to a smaller addressable market. Surprise, it turns out that general wisdom is right.
And I would contend that supporting white supremacists is stupid in itself, but doing so publicly when you lead a company that relies on a good public perception, all while supporting someone whose stated goal is to destroy your industry, is particularly stupid. But his stupidity hasn’t just been limited to politics, but also to purely business decisions. And we can see how stupid it all is with the effect it has all had on Tesla’s sales results.
It would be interesting to see what happened in the intervening months, given the public breakup between Musk and Mr. Trump – though Musk has since apologized for his outburst (even though what he said was true), and Musk has continued to spread racist nonsense in the meantime. Protests are still ongoing and sales are still dropping, so the public seems to have a memory of Musk’s ridiculousness, even if he’s gotten slightly more quiet in recent weeks.
It would also be interesting to see how much different the results would be if there were more great EVs available in the US at good prices. EVs from other brands are getting better, but Tesla still has both great cars and a well-considered ecosystem around them, and $299/mo for a Model 3 is hard to beat. If there were more mass-market EV-focused challengers (like the upcoming Rivian R2/R3, a non-tariff-affected Volvo EX30, any of the myriad Chinese options available overseas, etc.), we think Tesla’s loyalty results might be even less resilient than they are.
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Trump’s Interior Department halted construction on 704 megawatt (MW) Revolution Wind, the US’s first multi-state offshore wind project that’s already 80% complete. Grid operator ISO New England says the decision is a threat to the grid.
ISO New England released a statement responding to the stop-work order, warning that “delaying the project will increase risks to reliability.”:
As demand for electricity grows, New England must maintain and add to its energy infrastructure. Unpredictable risks and threats to resources – regardless of technology – that have made significant capital investments, secured necessary permits, and are close to completion will stifle future investments, increase costs to consumers, and undermine the power grid’s reliability and the region’s economy now and in the future.
Revolution Wind, a joint development between Ørsted and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, is a 65-turbine project capable of powering around 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut once it’s complete. It was expected to come online next year. The project has created more than 1,200 jobs.
On August 22, the director of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent a vague letter to Ørsted commanding it to halt all activities on the fully permitted Revolution Wind, citing “national security interests,” yet providing no details.
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BOEM’s Record of Decision for Revolution Wind, reported in 2023 in Section 4.6, page 185, states that the national security effects of the project would be “negligible and avoidable.”
This latest move echoes Trump’s cancellation in April of New York’s $5 billion Empire Wind 1 project, which was already under construction off New York’s coast. No viable reasons were given for that stop-work order either, and the cancellation was reversed in May.
Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), released the following statement in response to the Revolution Wind order:
The Trump administration’s war on the electricity needed to power the grid continues on all fronts. Halting Revolution Wind is a devastating attack on workers, on electricity customers, and on the investment climate in the US.
New England homeowners will feel this when they tear open their electricity bills and look at the surging costs of keeping the lights on.
This administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future – solar and wind power.
It makes no sense to say we have an energy emergency and then make decisions like this. Unfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided actions.
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Tesla is teasing a new product release on Friday, August 29th, coming to Europe and the Middle East. It’s likely going to be the Model Y Performance.
On X today, Tesla has teased an upcoming product release coming this friday.
The post is cryptic. It only mentions ‘spoiler alert’ and the date August 29 with what looks like a close up of a vehicle with what appears to be a spoil – hence the “spoiler alert” reference:
There are main suspect is the Model Y Performance due to the spoiler reference.
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Since the Model Y refresh in January, Tesla stopped selling the Model Y Performance. It is due to launch the top performance version under the new design.
When Tesla released the Model 3 refresh in 2024, it took about 4 months for Tesla to launch the new performance version.
Electrek’s Take
The only thing that I find strange with this likely being the Model Y Performance is the fact that they tweeted this from the Europe and Middle East account.
It would be strange for the Model Y Performance to launch there first, but who knows. Maybe Tesla started production at Gigafactory Berlin first.
I don’t think this will have a major impact on Tesla’s business. The Model Y Performance is the least popular version of the best-selling Model Y.
We don’t have the full mix of sales, but I wouldn’t be suprised if it represents less than 10% of Tesla’s Model Y deliveries.
The Model 3 Performance is probably a more popular option within the Model 3 lineup as it is a lot more fun to drive.
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The GV60 Magma will have a distinct look and feel compared to other Genesis vehicles. As the first EV from its new performance sub-brand, the Genesis GV60 Magma will debut with enhanced power, advanced suspension, a sporty new design, and more. For the first time, it was caught on video racing around the Nürburgring, giving us our closest look yet.
Genesis GV60 Magma EV flexes new style at Nürburgring
Magma is “the brand’s expansion into the realm of high-performance vehicles,” Genesis boasted. Among the first vehicles to earn a Magma upgrade is the GV60.
Genesis fine-tuned the electric crossover SUV, giving it a wider and lower stance for improved control. The larger lower air intake contributes to the aggressive new look, while also serving to cool the batteries and motor, both of which have been upgraded for enhanced performance.
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Earlier this year, we got a good look at the GV60 Magma during winter testing in Europe. Although you could see a few new design features, it was mostly covered in camo.
Genesis GV60 Magma testing with other Magma vehicles (Source: Genesis)
After it was recently spotted with less camo at the Nürburgring race track in Germany, we are getting an even better idea of what to expect when it arrives.
The video from CarSpyMedia shows the Genesis GV60 Magma EV with a production body and minimal camouflage.
You can see the high-performance vehicle flexing its power and handling as it rips around the track. Like other Hyundai Motor performance EVs, including the new IONIQ 6 N, you can expect the Genesis GV60 Magma to deliver over 600 horsepower, if not closer to 700.
The current Genesis GV60 Performance delivers up to 429 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque, good for a 0 to 60 mph sprint in 3.7 seconds.
Horsepower
0 to 60 mph (seconds)
Starting Price
Genesis GV60 Performance
429
3.7
$69,900
Genesis GV60 Magma
?
?
?
Porsche Taycan
402
4.5
$99,400
Porsche Taycan Turbo GT (with Weissach Package)
1,092
2.1
$230,000
Tesla Model S Plaid
1,020
1.99
$89,990
Genesis GV60 Magma vs Porsche Taycan vs Tesla Model S Plaid
Genesis will launch the GV60 Magma EV later this year in Korea, followed by the US, Europe, and other global markets. We will learn prices and final specs closer to launch, but given the Performance models start at $69,900, you can expect a higher starting price tag, likely closer to $75,000.
At that it would be significantly less than the Porsche Taycan Turbo and Tesla Model S Plaid. Will it match the performance?
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