Tesla owners are disguising their cars as a sign of resistance. There are plenty of YouTube videos with tips on how to hide the evidence that you’re driving a Tesla. Others are putting bumper stickers explaining that: “I bought this before Elon went crazy.” People are selling or otherwise getting rid of their Teslas if they can afford to, and the stock is in a nosedive. All of these are a growing response to owner Elon Musk’s erratic behavior and lack of attention spent recently on running Tesla.
Yet if you can think back to a time before this, Musk was once treated like a hero. He nearly single-handedly moved the automotive industry toward electric vehicles, accelerated adoption of home solar technology with the Powerwall and even offered limited open-source access to Tesla’s patents and technology. So perhaps the real lesson in this fall from grace is just how quickly and completely it can happen, even with someone who was once treated like a hero.
