Tesla is already offering low 1.99% financing on six-year loans for customers looking to buy the $48,990 long-range, all-wheel-drive Model Y, the series production version of the newer car that debuted in early April. Gone are the days when Tesla had to keep hiking prices to avoid being hopelessly swamped by demand. Now CEO Elon Musk has to fight for every new customer.
Just weeks after the launch of the Model Y refresh, a slightly newer version of the five-year-old crossover, Tesla informed buyers on Sunday they can already have the car at a discounted financing rate. Interested buyers can qualify for a six-year loan at 1.99% if they put down $3,999 for the purchase of a long-range all-wheel-drive version. By contrast, financing rates for some of Tesla’s upscale models top 6%.
It’s actually kind of tragic. Tesla would have been, no, should have been a key domestic EV maker. They should have been our global offering in a strategically important industry. But instead, they’re rapidly becoming a pariah. And it’s all because of one man. One terrible, terrible man.
This is a very, very important lesson that America MUST learn: just because someone is rich, that does not mean they are smart, or good, or trustworthy. Personality matters, a lot. I am certain that if Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning could go back, they would tell Mr. Musk “no thank you, we’re not interested in your investment,” even though they really needed the money. It wasn’t worth it, it came with strings attached. Within just a few years of taking Musk’s money, both men were forced out of the company, and Musk was well on his way to convincing millions of Americans that we was a super genius who singlehandedly invented the electric car.
In this country, we have not only tolerated megalomaniacal narcissists like Musk, we’ve celebrated them. That has to stop. Look at where it has gotten us. One of them is president now! If we don’t learn from this, and start to see men like Trump and Musk as the disease that they are, we are doomed. If we don’t get these men under control, they will control us.
I think the education needs to go further. Being billionaire rich is in itself a huge red flag; and people having this much money should immediately cause others to distrust them on every level because nobody gets that rich from honest work, from paying their employees fairly, from caring about the environment and general wellbeing of mankind.
Being a billionaire should disqualify people from owning and/or having shares in any economical sector deemed essential to societal wellbeing, not to mention from holding any kind of public office or even from exercising any kind of political agenda at all. They’re rich, they don’t need representation. They actually can take care of themselves.