NPR: Elon Musk is winning Republican fans. Can Tesla win them over, too?

It’s been a wild couple of weeks for the politics of EVs. Somehow it all led to Donald Trump selling Tesla’s on the White House front lawn?

How do these events change our thinking of the ever-present political divide on EVs? Is Elon still uniquely positioned to close the gap, as we posit in our recent analysis?

Check out this recent article in NPR exploring the issue, which heavily cites our data and Mike’s analysis.

Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant, is more optimistic. Slightly. “He could help make Republicans consider EVs more, take a little of the political stigma away,” he says. “But it has nowhere near the short-term impact upon Tesla that Elon’s Bond villain status among Democrats and among Harris voters has.” …

But right now, Murphy says, the politics of buying an EV aren’t going away — just getting more complicated. What Musk is doing, he says, is a little bit like pouring gasoline on a battery fire.