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As Tesla stock continues to fall and the company’s dealerships become the site of protests, Tesla owners are trading in their electric vehicles at a record rate, according to new data from Edmunds, a national car shopping website.
In the first two weeks of March, “Tesla cars from model year 2017 or newer accounted for 1.4% of all the vehicles traded in,” Reuters reported, citing data from Edmunds. That represents a 0.2% increase from Tesla trade-ins from the prior month, according to the data. Reuters adds that “March’s trade-ins so far would be the highest monthly share Edmunds has on record of Tesla trade-ins toward new or used purchases at dealerships, if the trend continues.”
Those numbers don’t bode well for a company that has suffered embarrassing setbacks in recent months. Safety regulators issued a sweeping recall of more than 46,000 Cybertrucks on Thursday — the eighth such recall since the vehicles began selling more than a year ago — because Tesla used faulty glue that can allow an exterior panel to come off. The company’s stock has also been sliding fairly steadily since the end of December, raising concerns among shareholders and employees.
Musk has tried to calm those nerves internally, telling employees in an all-hands meeting Thursday to hang onto their stock despite its sinking value.
“If you read the news it feels like, you know, Armageddon,” Musk said on a livestream with employees. “It’s like, I can’t walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. Like, what’s going on?"
It’s hard to tell how directly Tesla’s woes are tied to public disdain for Musk’s haphazard shakeup of the federal bureaucracy. But Tesla owners and facilities have certainly borne the brunt of the billionaire’s unpopularity with the American public. Across the country, Tesla vehicles and charging stations have been vandalized, and its dealerships have faced protests from angry crowds.
Meanwhile, Republicans have mobilized to protect Musk’s interests. President Donald Trump held a bizarre event on the White House South Lawn to tout Tesla vehicles. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News viewers to buy the company’s stock — a move that seem to instantly backfire and may open Lutnick up to a congressional ethics investigation. And on Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced criminal charges against three people accused of the “violent destruction of Tesla properties” in what appear to be unrelated incidents.
“Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars,” Bondi said in a statement.