On any given day in Berkeley you’re likely to see what looks like a motorcade of identical Teslas driving by.
But lately, more and more Tesla drivers in this notoriously liberal city are putting anti-Elon Musk bumper stickers on their cars.
Fred Liao has one of these stickers. It reads “I bought this before Elon went crazy.” He pulled up to the Berkeley Trader Joe’s in his Model 3.
“I [feel] ashamed driving Tesla now,” Liao said. “I don’t think it’s right [for] very rich people to influence our decision making process in a so, kind of, direct way.”
California is converting to electric vehicles faster than anywhere else in the country. And Tesla sells more of them than any other EV manufacturer. But as Tesla founder Elon Musk takes a central role in President Donald Trump’s administration, some Tesla drivers in the blue state are feeling conflicted.
At a grocery store across town called Berkeley Bowl, Christine Will parked her Model X. She didn’t have a sticker, but is in the market for one. She already knew what she wanted it to say.
“That I bought it before I knew he was nuts basically,” Will said. “ I've been thinking about it for a long time, but now I really, really want it ever since the inauguration actually.”
Will was an early Tesla adopter. She got her car back in 2016, before those looking to buy an EV had as many options as they do now.
“I was on board with the, you know, whole EV, climate change, all of that and was excited about the range,” Will said. “You want to do what you can, but I at the same time don't want to be supporting this. This is fascism in my eyes.”
Not all Tesla drivers in this liberal stronghold feel the same about Musk’s recent political actions. Vipul Garg says he likes that his Tesla is good for the environment.
“His opinions are his opinions, the product he makes is different from the person,” Garg said.
Meanwhile, some Tesla drivers are taking their resistance a step further, like Berkeley resident Karla McKerley.
“We're actually trying to sell our car,” McKerley said.
She and her family were thinking about selling their car for the past few months, but she hit her Tesla tipping point in January.
“Frankly when Elon Musk did his what's difficult to not interpret as a Heil Hitler salute, that was like ‘what,’” McKerley said.
Musk downplayed the incident on X.
McKerley also referenced the address Musk delivered to a German far-right party where he made a comment about “multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”
“I was a history major at Cal and I studied World War II and that was just very scary, frankly, and uh I don't want to be associated with that,” McKerley said.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Recent data from the California Energy Commission shows that EV sales leveled off in 2024 after years of rapid growth. Tesla sales dropped by 10% in the state.
EV experts say this is a dynamic market and increased competition from other manufacturers is a big part of this shift.
But it’s possible that people’s disillusionment with Musk’s political shift could impact California’s EV market, according to energy experts.
James Sallee is an EV and economic expert at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
“Because Tesla is such a large part of the market, I think there's a very real chance that this can have an effect on the market overall,” Sallee said.
Sallee said EVs are more likely to be adopted in more liberal and affluent regions, like Berkeley.
There’s a distinct possibility that if drivers in these communities sell their Teslas and opt for a different EV, it’s possible people in redder parts of the country could end up buying them, he said.
“Then on net, we could get an increase in electric vehicles if suddenly Elon Musk's identity switch causes an embrace of electric vehicles in the part of America that had very low take up previously,” Sallee said.
But it’s too soon to tell whether this shift will take place.
Protesters chant outside a Tesla showroom in Berkeley, CA. February 15, 2025.Laura Fitzgerald/CapRadio
On a recent Saturday afternoon, over a hundred people protested in front of a Tesla showroom in Berkeley.
Protesters held signs while chanting “Hey! Ho! Elon Musk has got to go!”
Matthew O’Neill was one of them and said he was protesting in light of the recent firing of federal employees, one of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency initiatives.
“Three of my friends are losing their jobs to these job cuts and DOGE and Elon have no idea what they do, they do great work, and now they’re out jobs,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill said Musk’s politics haven’t impacted his decision to get an electric car.
“There are plenty of EVs that you can buy that aren’t a Tesla,” O’Neill said. “I have an EV that’s not a Tesla.”
He drives a Kia instead.
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