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Tesla Protests Rage Against The Machine [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-24
35-minute video of the dancing protesters outside a DC showroom and a comprehensive look at the whole issue by First Post located in Mumbai, India.
30-second clip of the DC showroom protest.
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Saturday was a day for dozens of demonstrations against Tesla across the US, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
This is from the demonstration in front of the Georgetown, Washington DC, Tesla showroom:
"We are protesting this authoritarian regime with joy. One of the things that authoritarian regimes like to do is squash dissent and instill fear. And we have no fear because we are free, we are Americans. We have our First Amendment rights, and we are coming out with joy and showing other people that they're not alone." Unattributed.
"What's happening here is that US citizens are exercising their free speech in a peaceful way to protest what's happening with Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the undermining of our democracy and the cutting of services, the cutting of foreign aid, the cutting of free speech, and threatening of judges." Unattributed.
Earlier in the month, there were demonstrations in the U.K. in West London and Manchester.
West London
Manchester.
Manchester.
Manchester.
Manchester.
There is a storm brewing for Tesla.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, a man drove a Nissan Pathfinder SUV into a crowd of 100 Tesla protesters outside a showroom on Saturday. No one was hit as they jumped out of the way.
"He drove into a crowd of senior citizens. Everyone was able to move out, but two older women were really almost clipped. We immediately called the cops," said Mark Offerman of the Democratic Progressive Caucus.
Outside West Palm Beach showroom.
The man stopped and got out of his car, claiming his brakes and electronics had gone out.
When the police arrived, after interviewing the man, he was arrested at the scene and will be charged with assault. He claimed he was an employee at the Tesla showroom.
The protest banners read "Lawless" and "Shame."
Two sisters were at the protest. One with the "Musk is a rat!" sign said, "I'm extremely worried about our democracy. Trump doesn't follow any rules. Musk has no official position. He shouldn't be anywhere near anything."
Together, the sisters have participated in about 10 protests in Palm Beach County, advocating for immigrant rights and against Trump at his golf course, when he's visiting the county.
"There was a lot of fear here today because he's called people that are at these kinds of demonstrations 'domestic terrorists.' It just angered me all the more. How dare he try to intimidate us?"
Manhattan showroom.
At the Mahattan showroom,also on Saturday, Mark, who wanted to be identified by first name only, said, "If we can go ahead and continue to protest Tesla as strong as we possibly can and let the world know it's a toxic brand that fuels him, that's when you start putting pressure on someone. When you control his money, you control him."
One protester used chalk with the STOP already on the asphalt to make it "STOP ELON AND DOGE."
At a Colorado Springs showroom on Saturday was a Tesla showroom TakeDown organized protest.
Colorado Springs.
"It's democracy that's on the line right now," said protester Jean Stanton.
Iraq war veteran Tiffany Koski criticized Musk for his Nazi salute. "It's the most American thing you can do, to protest and to boycott, that's catching on. Elon's stocks are going down, and I love that for him."
Saturday's protest in Kitchner, Ontario, Canada went well. There were only 15 people, but they made their point.
Kirtchner, Ontario.
Clay Eccles had some words for Elon Musk, "He's not a good person...I'd like to see him go out of business. Canadians have been provoked and we're not going to put up with this."
Canadians are still adding to the petition to have Musk's Canadian citizenship removed.
Tesla sales in Australia dropped by 71% in February. Tesla sales dropped 76% in Germany in the same month. Down 40% in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Also down 26% in France.
Tesla sales of cars made in China dropped 49%. At the same time cars made by BYD went up 90%.
Vandalism of cars in Australia and New Zealand that were happening weeks ago have disappeared, possibly in response to all the protests instead.
There's another massive Takedown protest plan for March 29th. most of them are set up in the United States but there are also many in Europe and in Australia shown on the ActionNetwork.org map.
There's also one planned a week later on April 5th. They're all being planned for Saturdays, when people are normally not working.
Still another problem for Tesla and Elon, is that his full self driving has stagnated and appears to be going nowhere. At $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 a month, it's just not working. The problem is that Tesla's only have cameras to go by and analyze, where other cars have lidar sensors, light detection and ranging, basically radar using lasers, as well as cameras. It turns out that doing things just visually doesn't work.
Then there's the new battery that BYD just came out with that obsoletes Tesla's battery technology. Packing 50% more electricity than previous batteries.
Tesla just announced today that it's building a new 1 million square feet factory in Waller, Texas to build it's Megapack batteries for large scale storage for solar energy projects, but it could be used for wind and excess power plant generation. The problem is that the battery design used in his LFP, lithium-iron phosphate, batteries has just been made obsolete with the second generation BYD Blade battery. Faster charging, more storage in the same space, and cheaper to make. A win on all fronts. If BYD built a battery factory in the US, it would get past Trump's tariffs and take over the industry. Unless US technology does the same and surpasses it. The first Blade battery came out in 2020. So Tesla is behind in the game.
Saudi Arabia BYD artist's impression.
BYD is already building better than the equivalent of Megapack storage in Saudi Arabia on 5 sites, which will store 12.5 GWh of electricity.
Tesla is not only massively down in sales across the world, but people are selling theirs to get other brand vehicles, and the used ones aren't selling like they used to. It's like people need to sell theirs before the used Tesla resale market disappears, because nobody wants them.
When T-online did a survey of 100,000 people in Germany, 94% said they would never buy a Tesla.
Nobody's done such a survey in the United States, but somebody will think about doing it soon, I'll bet.
The protests are working, the boycott is working or being created spontaneously because people don't want to be vandalism targets, although that seems to be subsiding. I hope it stops completely, as it reflects unnecessarily on peaceful protesters.
The next question is how far will Pam Bondi's threat go? 5 to 20 years for vandalism or arson can't be possible. It's not a federal crime. There is no "domestic terrorism" law. But if Trump can pull the 1798 Alien Enemies Act stunt, maybe they can find something on the books that works.
If Bondi tries to go after peaceful protesters, she'll get smacked right back with First Amendment violations.
If she tries to create the "funding" conspiracy that people or organizations like George Soros or ActBlue are behind it, so what? Even if there was some "funding," people can spend their money as they want as Musk did with the $270 million Musk shoved into Trump's campaign. Ah, for the days before Citizens United.
A Tesla investor with 250,000 shares is calling for the Tesla Board of Directors to oust Elon Musk as CEO. There could be investor class action suits. He beat a shareholder suit over self-driving promises, but he'd have a hard time beating one now with his activities causing the stock to tank. It's up $30 a share today. I think some people listened to Howard Lutnick when he said to buy it because it was too low. This will be a short-lived increase I believe.
Musk is going to regret his Trump association and DOGE's destruction
The whole world's watching, and his demise couldn't happen to a Nazier guy.
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