Hate is widely regarded as a terrible thing, bad for the soul and the cause of a myriad physical and mental ailments. It’s an especially dangerous quality for journalists without the awareness and discipline to guard against their own biases and avoid reporting the news as they want it to be, let the facts be damned. The corporate media’s disdain for Elon Musk has reached such a crescendo that reporters have glossed over an issue Joe Biden would call “code-red alarming” if he were still playing with a full deck.
California, the zany state of “progressives” that has long dominated America’s EV sales, appears to be losing its enthusiasm for electric vehicles – or at best the enthusiasm has remained flat for most of the past 15 months, according to figures released last week by the California New Car Dealers Association. It’s an alarming trend given the state’s aggressive climate and air pollution goals.
Under California’s mandate, approved in 2022, 35% of new 2026 car models sold by automakers must be zero emissions. By the end of the decade, 68% of new vehicle sales must be zero emissions, and in 2035, all sales of gasoline-powered cars will be banned in California. The 2026 models will hit dealer lots later this fall.
“Dealers sell what customers want to buy,” said Robb Hernandez, CNCDA’s Chairman and President of Camino Real Chevrolet. “No mandate can force consumers to choose otherwise. Although the manufacturers we represent are increasing EV sales in California, with the substantial decline in Tesla sales, EV market penetration is largely flat. This puts us well short of EV sales mandates that take effect this year.”
Of course, this is news to those who get their news primarily from corporate media, where reporters view every news event through the prism of “What’s It Mean for Elon Musk?” As an example, here’s the focus Reuters took on 1st quarter electric vehicle registrations in California:
It’s true that Tesla’s sales took a pounding in California in the first three months of 2025, although the exclusively focused EV automaker is still far-and-away the market leader with a whopping 43% EV market share.
Tesla was ranked No. 3 in California for overall sales, capturing 9.1% of new car registrations. By comparison, all of GM’s brands combined captured a mere 10% of new car registrations. The legacy automaker’s California EV sales were so pathetic that only two of its vehicles ranked in the top 25, despite the lofty EV ambitions of CEO Mary Barra, who previously said she’d be selling more EVs than Tesla by 2025.
Tesla’s much maligned Cybertruck captured more new vehicle registrations than all of GM’s electric vehicles models except the Mexican-made EV Chevy Equinox, which captured 2,688 new vehicle registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 2,282. For that matter, the Cybertruck outsold Ford’s electric Lightning F-150 pickup, which was introduced with great fanfare in 2021 and accounted for only 2,003 new vehicle registrations.
Ford CEO Jim Farley in 2023 dissed the Cybertruck, dismissing it as “a cool high-end product parked in front of a hotel” rather than “a truck for real people.” I guess the drivers of the growing number of Cybertrucks in my neighborhood are merely avatars who just look unshaven a-holes.
While California’s EV and hybrid plug-in sales increased 7.3% in the first quarter, the state’s new vehicle registrations rose 8.3%. As a percentage of total new vehicle registrations, combined EV and plugin hybrid sales declined a tad to 20.8% in the first quarter from 21.3% in the previous three months. A one-time drop in percentage sales wouldn’t be terribly alarming, but the percentage is down from its peak of 23.8% in the third quarter of 2024.
Keep in mind that there’s been a slew of new EV model introductions in the past two years so there are more of them competing for sales. Also keep in mind that most electric vehicles are still heavily subsidized by me and other U.S. taxpayers as they are eligible for lucrative tax credits.
The good news for environmentalists is that Californians aren’t reverting en masse to buy gas engine vehicles. Californians might be losers when it comes to electing politicians, but they’re a discerning bunch when it comes to their choice of wheels. Understandably, Toyota and Honda are the state’s leading brands, respectively accounting 16.5% and 10.8% of California’s new vehicle registrations in the 1st quarter.
Toyota, whose former CEO resigned years ago after he was pummeled in the media for saying the Americans weren’t yet ready to embrace electric vehicles, has led the global industry with hybrids, which accounted for 17.9% of California’s new vehicle registrations in the 1st quarter. That respectively compares to 17.5%, 15%, 13.4% and 13.1% in the previous four quarters. There’s a global shortage of Toyota hybrids, an indication that Californians’ appetite for them is possibly even greater than new hybri vehicle registrations suggest.
Make no mistake, I’m neither an apologist for Tesla nor am I suggesting that the brand hasn’t been greatly harmed by Elon Musk’s politics and his antics. I’ve long questioned Musk’s ethics and I wished ill will on Tesla years ago. I also wonder how Tesla could again prosper, particularly given the exodus of some critical talent that hasn’t received much coverage.
One executive who bolted in March after more than a decade with the company was Petter Winberg, Tesla’s Principal CAE Crash Safety Engineer, who the trade publication Teslarati reported worked on crash architectures for the Cybercab, Semi, and future vehicles, along with the Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y, and developing specific accident architectures once Giga Casting production came into play.
Tesla from the get-go was focused on making its vehicles among the safest, according to Lars Moravy, the company’s vice president of vehicle engineering.
Another critical departure was David Lau, vice president of software engineering who oversaw Tesla’s vehicle software platform, cloud services, and manufacturing systems. Other alarming recent resignations include Marc Van Impe, Tesla’s global vehicle automation and safety policy lead, and CIO Nagesh Saldi.
Then there’s the mounting damning allegations about Tesla’s business practices. A proposed class action lawsuit was filed last week alleging that the company speeds up odometers on its electric vehicles so they fall out of warranty faster, thereby minimizing its warranty repairs obligation. Musk in a tweet dismissed the lawsuit as “idiotic” and other Tesla loyalists have also voiced skepticism.
There’s also the damning allegations of Tesla whistleblower Cristina Balan, a Romanian-born engineer who formerly worked for Tesla on the Model S, and claims that Musk threatened to deport her entire team after she sounded the alarm about a potential brake safety issue.
Yet despite all the turmoil and Musk supposedly MIA from the company, Tesla continues to innovate and run circles around much of the EV competition, particularly GM. The refreshed Model Y has garnered rave reviews and given that it was only made available in March, possibly could spark another surge in Tesla sales.
“It’s a much better family SUV and a much better electric car,” said Tom Ford, associate editor at Top Gear, in a YouTube video. “I think this is pretty much everything you could’ve asked for from a revised Model Y.”
Ford added: “I’m here to tell you that, basically, you should sell your old Model Y because this is night and day better than before.”
Tesla recently upgraded its vehicle software to pair with the Apple watch, which my cousin Rob tells me works flawlessly. That might not sound like a big deal, but GM’s engineers couldn’t pull off that feat.
Where Tesla is headed is anyone’s guess, but one person whose pronouncements I don’t value is Ross Gerber, a money manager who was once bullish on the company but is now a dial-a-quote source for corporate media reporters looking for someone to trash Musk and make bearish predictions on Tesla’s stock, despite Gerber holding some shares in the company.
Curious about a money manager who trashes his own holdings, I did some research on Gerber, which confirmed my instincts and suspicions.
In July 2021, Gerber’s firm Gerber Kawaski launched GK ETF (ticker: GK), an actively managed exchange-traded fund that holds large allocations in tech, electric vehicles, and digital media—a growth-heavy portfolio aimed at capturing long-term secular trends. The fund has underperformed the S&P 500 since its inception, sometimes quite significantly.
In early January 2023, Gerber declared that Musk’s antics were harming Tesla and that he “broke the stock.” Gerber made headlines for himself, saying that he wanted a seat on Tesla’s board. Within days of Gerber declaring that Musk broke the stock, Tesla’s shares rallied, and by mid-February had doubled from its 52-week (intraday) low on Jan. 6.