Brand destruction is all the rage these days. George Tsakraklides delves into what’s happening at Tesla (TSLA) in this “brand autopsy.”

The smell of formaldehyde may be nauseating and the cold white flickering light above incredibly unkind, but this is an opportunity I wouldn’t miss for the world: as I prepare to put my hypoallergenic nitrile gloves on, get ready to dive deep into this corpse with me. We’re about to do an autopsy on Tesla. The cadaver may still be warm, but trust me, it’s dead.

Tesla has joined the ranks of the morbid pantheon of dead brands who flatlined right in the height of their glory like Kodak, Blockbuster and The Weinstein Company. But the cause of death still needs to go on its record. Follow me as I apply my two decades of experience in the world’s biggest brand consultancies to solve this suicide mystery. Oops. I’m giving stuff away already.

As a quick primer, the health of a brand rests on three fundamental pillars:

• Awareness (how well and how widely do people know you),
• Substance (do you actually offer something of value in the market, how good are the fundamentals of your product), and
• Difference (how well do you stand out amongst competitors).

These three pillars are given different names and calculations by different brand consultancies, but their core meaning is the same.

So how has Tesla performed on these three metrics?

Awareness

Up until recently this was a major plus for Tesla, as there was barely a person on the planet who hadn’t heard of the brand. Unfortunately, the brand’s owner was equally, if not more, salient than the brand itself. Elon himself became by far the brand’s biggest awareness touchpoint and reputation asset, an extremely risky, “all eggs in one Tesla” brand strategy. The minute that the geek mask fell off and the Nazi face was revealed, awareness had the reverse effect on the brand: no one wanted to touch a Swasticar.

Not because of the car, but because of its CEO. Brands with similar issues have in the past ousted their CEOs in order to quickly medicate reputation contagion, but arguably it is too late for Tesla, even if Elon was up for this type for intervention. Tesla is practically a namesake brand, short of being called “Elon’s Cars”. It would be very difficult to transform it into a non-Elon brand. Most people who bought Teslas were buying into Elon’s cult of personality. Now that this cult looks more a mini-me child between Hitler and Kim Jong Un, its kind of a tough sell. Elon’s sieg heils made the rounds of the planet’s cyberspace in milliseconds thanks to the brand’s massive awareness. And thanks to this same awareness, the stock market value has crashed faster than a cheetah on ketamine. Bye Felicia.

Substance

OK let’s talk about the actual product. Contrary to what you might think, car purchases are incredibly emotional decisions: all about social status, reputation among friends, etc. So when we talk about “product” in market research, we talk about both its emotional and functional properties. And this means that the Elon “stink” also reaches well into the substance of his product.

But let’s leave that stink aside for now as we’ve discussed that already, and let’s look at Elon’s Cars in the flesh. I’m afraid the news is pretty bad here too.

First off, it looks like the most iconic product, the Cybertruck, was never thoroughly tested. Shipments have been halted as apparently entire metal panels fly off the car at highway speeds. Even if they manage to fix this quickly, this is quite damaging to the brand, as there are immediate associations with SpaceX rockets shedding themselves off in space. This is called brand contagion, when the negative reputation of a brand of the same owner infects another one in the family of brands. We don’t know if SpaceX is damaging Tesla reputation more than Tesla damaging SpaceX, (and more than Elon himself damaging both these brands), but Tesla drivers certainly don’t like to think of themselves as disposable rocket fuel. For now, the imagery is just too unfortunate. It screams “untested”, and I can’t help but think how untested DOGE itself is. I think it is just “un”, as in “undoing” things.

Not a good brand look.

But what about the other Tesla models? Well, it turns out Tesla cars are good, but as the saying goes in branding, you’re only as good as your next competitor. China’s BYD is by far superior to Tesla, and this is why BYD cars have been banned in the US.

But guess what: they won’t be banned in countries that don’t like to buy from fascists AND want a better car.

One that doesn’t crash like a rocket, for example. Or one whose battery charges almost as fast as putting gas on a normal car. Ouch. If you are looking for reasons to be driving a Tesla on a pure product superiority basis, you’ll be looking for a while. Alternatively, you can simply trust what Trump said in his White House Tesla infomercial: “Everything’s Computer!!!”

Difference

Tesla “lived and breathed” difference, simply by virtue of being an EV brand which jumped on the “sustainability” (even though EV cars are not really sustainable) bandwagon early enough to capitalise on the incredible trajectory of transformation and fake green hype of the automotive industry. It became the leader of the innovation pack in a way that was impossible to challenge, and this is why the company’s stock was catapulted to ridiculous heights purely based on future market valuation. It is for this reason that this stock still has a long, looong way to crash, given that this future now looks more like a SpaceX mission into a black hole.

But back to the fundamental “point of difference” for the brand, which was that it was a green brand, it means that its buyers were mostly ethical buyers who bought EVs because they wanted to do something good for the environment (even though EVs are toxic). Now, brands with a highly ethical consumer base, and an ethical point of difference, always need to be extremely careful. Because the market share for green Nazis is extremely small. Tesla’s point of difference meant that its audience was green consumers, Democrats, and people with higher incomes who can afford Teslas – who are therefore more likely to be Democrats, and Greens.

Add to this Elon’s unethical policies on social security, government layoffs, illegal powergrab, data grab, disregard for court orders and serious fraud allegations in Canada Tesla rebates which are under investigation, and the whole “ethical branding” veneer of making a better world begins to fall off like the Cybertruck’s side panels. Your “ethical audience” is not simply running away from your brand. They are now holding placards outside your dealership.

There is nothing wrong with a brand focusing on an extremely specific audience. Many brands have succeeded on this basis. But there is everything wrong with doing your very best to tell your own audience, the people who buy from you, that you hate everything about what they stand for, and still expect them to buy your car – especially if you’ve just made them broke by firing them. Tesla has poisoned its own consumer base and is now only left with budget-conscious Republicans who consider EVs to be “woke cars for pussies”. Good luck with that, Elon’s Cars.

George Tsakraklides is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist. Follow him on Bluesky @tsakraklides.bsky.social
Reddit: r/George_Tsakraklides
Twitter: @99blackbaloons