Ordinary motorists are unlikely to be able to immediately name the heads of famous global concerns, for example, who runs Toyota, Volkswagen or Ford? However, even non-motorists know that there are Tesla electric cars, and there is Elon Musk, who represents them. Yes, not everyone knows his position at Tesla Motors (or their list — because there are several), but he definitely acts as the frontman of this automotive brand, personally presenting each model and its updates, and for almost 14 years of presence on the market (counting from the date of the appearance of the Model S), "Musk" and "Tesla" have become inseparable concepts.
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Which, in general, until recently helped the company save considerable money on advertising (which Tesla actually has a minimum of), replacing it with bright public shows of the charismatic Elon. However, it turned out that this mechanism also has a reverse effect — if something happens that causes negativity in the audience, the companyʼs image falls synchronously with the drop in the level of enthusiasm for Muskʼs ideas.
Elonʼs entry into politics and several public activities (a famous speech with an ambiguous hand gesture, several controversial posts in "X", etc.) in recent months have had a significant impact on Tesla Motors. According to the publication " Focus ", which refers to the Electrek website, in the first 2 months of this year, sales of Tesla electric cars fell by 71% in Germany, by 45% in Norway, by 44% in France, by 44% in Spain, also by 49% in China and by 11% in the USA.
- Read also: Ten "Tesla killers" who failed
Since our task is to study the car market, not political processes, we will focus on Ukraine and the local market. Having investigated the question of how the ambiguous activity of Elon Musk will affect the sales of Tesla cars in our country.
According to the basic principles of a market economy, if demand for a product falls, this entails a decrease in its price. Letʼs consider how the average prices of Tesla electric cars in our market have changed over the past 6 months.
To fully understand the processes, as well as to exclude coincidences or coincidences, it is worth comparing how prices have changed over the same time for other models that are in high demand on the Ukrainian car market. Letʼs take the most popular electric car Nissan Leaf and the representative of the SUV group Volkswagen ID.4.
What is the result? Prices for electric cars have stopped falling, regardless of whether they are Tesla products or others. And there is even a noticeable increase in average prices, which is expected, after all, because the privileges for their customs clearance will end on December 31 of this year. This means that customs duties and VAT will return, which will lead to an increase in actual prices by more than 30%.
Returning to Tesla, this is not the first time that potentially careless public statements by Elon Musk could influence the decisions of Ukrainian buyers, but it has never led to a decrease in sales or, even more so, a boycott of this manufacturerʼs products in our market. Firstly, we do not have an official Tesla representative office, and it is unlikely that there will be one (despite what it would cost). Secondly, Tesla electric cars have balanced characteristics and price, are repairable, and there are many available American auction options, which makes them an interesting product.
Which ultimately suggests the following: when it comes time to respond to one or another provocative “tweet” of Elon, Ukrainians are ready to go on the offensive on social networks. When the question of buying an electric car arises, most separate the concepts of “Tesla” and “Elon”, putting them on different shelves. And in the end, they buy a “Model” from Tesla. At most, they will express their indignation at Elon’s behavior with a bumper sticker with text like “I bought this car before…”.
We have now analyzed the market price picture based on secondary data. Very soon we will summarize the actual trading results, and we will definitely pay attention to how the trading volumes of Tesla electric cars have changed (if they will change).
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