Skeptical consumers are not rushing out to buy the electric vehicles that virtue-signaling, climate-obsessed elites have tried to sell them.
On Monday, Reuters reported that the EV-manufacturing behemoth Tesla would slash 10 percent of its global workforce.
Meanwhile, two top Tesla executives announced their departure from the company.
News of the layoffs came via an internal company memo in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained the decision.
“As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” Musk wrote in the memo.
“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” the memo read.
Drew Baglino, Tesla’s senior vice president in charge of battery development, was one of the two departing executives.
“Few have contributed as much as you,” Musk wrote in response to Baglino’s departure announcement on the social media platform X.
After taking a well-deserved break, Drew will no doubt go on to do great things. I look forward to following what he does next.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024
Rohan Patel, vice president for public policy and business development, also announced his departure on X.
The past 8 years at Tesla have been filled with every emotion – but the feeling I have today is utmost gratitude.
To our unbelievable customers and fans – I’m inspired by your passion and impact on @Tesla and the mission.
To @elonmusk for giving me the chance and…
— Rohan Patel (@rohanspatel) April 15, 2024
Put simply, consumer demand for EVs has not met expectations. Thus, the numbers for Tesla have not looked good.
In the first quarter of 2024, for the first time in four years, the company’s total global vehicle deliveries fell, according to Reuters.
Unsurprisingly, Tesla shares have also fallen by around 33 percent since the beginning of the year.
In January, the Financial Times reported that the Chinese company BYD, backed by Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, had eclipsed Tesla as the world’s top-selling EV manufacturer.
According to Craig Irwin, senior research analyst at Roth Capital, the layoffs signaled that Musk and other company executives expect their challenges to continue.
“Tesla is maturing as a company and isn’t the growth story that it used to be,” Irwin said, according to Reuters. “Layoffs imply management expects weak demand to persist.”
News of layoffs and executive instability at Tesla came amid a recent spate of bad news for EV makers.
In February, for instance, the Amazon-backed EV company Rivian also announced an approximately 10 percent reduction in its workforce.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, facing dismal polling numbers as he seeks re-election, has played politics with the EV issue.
Have you considered buying an electric vehicle?
Last month, the Biden administration’s Department of Energy announced short-term measures that would allow automakers to continue selling gasoline-powered trucks and SUVs — popular with consumers and thus with auto workers in Michigan, a crucial battleground state — without incurring billions of dollars in fines.
That same announcement made it clear, however, that the Biden administration still intends heavy-handed environmental regulations. It simply wants voters to forget about them until after November’s presidential election.
By now, however, it appears that consumers have tuned out the fear-mongering, climate-obsessed elites. And who can blame them?
After all, in 2021 and ’22, Biden and his fellow virtue-signaling elites repeatedly decried what they called a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” That proved to be untrue.
In like manner, elites have pushed authoritarian remedies for the “climate crisis” while buying up oceanfront property supposedly threatened by rising sea levels, or while flying to climate conferences in eco-unfriendly private jets.
In short, consumers have noticed. And the evidence is in: Unless they enjoy the sort of affluence that gives them the luxury of virtue-signaling on climate change, consumers will not purchase EVs.
Of course, if EVs ever match or exceed traditional gas-powered vehicles in performance, safety and affordability, consumers will consider them, as they should.
But they will not purchase EVs simply because elites believe that caring about climate change and requiring others to do likewise makes them look good.
