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Second place really doesn’t look good on Tesla

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When your brand is built on being number one, finishing second isn’t just a problem, it’s a complete identity crisis.

Some products become so synonymous with their category that the brand name replaces the thing itself. You don’t use an internet search engine, you Google it. You don’t blow your nose on a tissue, you grab a Kleenex. And for years, Elon Musk‘s car company had a similar advantage. “Tesla” and “electric vehicle” were commonly used interchangeably, almost as if no other EV brand existed.

That was Tesla’s superpower. They didn’t just make EVs; they were EVs. Every other manufacturer was playing catch-up. But now? They’re in second place. And for a brand like Tesla, second place might as well mean “first loser”. Not even the Cybertruck design debacle was as bad for the brand as this.

Reality catches up

So what’s happened? In short, Chinese manufacturer BYD has overtaken Tesla as the world’s biggest electric vehicle maker. Tesla delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025; down 9% from the previous year. BYD sold 2.26 million. That’s not close; that’s getting beaten at your own game. And it’s not just about sales; Tesla’s brand value has plummeted 35% in Interbrand’s latest ranking.

But here’s what’s genuinely bonkers: Tesla’s stock finished 2025 up 11%. Meanwhile traditional manufacturers like Toyota, who actually make consistent profits from their EVs, continue to be valued at a fraction of Tesla’s worth.

How’s that possible? Basically, Elon Musk is the world’s most effective one-man marketing department. He doesn’t just promote Tesla; he is Tesla. Every tweet, every wild promise about robotaxis and humanoid robots convinces investors they’re not buying a car company; they’re buying a sci-fi future.

A stainless steel Tesla Cybertruck driving down a long, open road toward snow-capped mountain peaks.

Tesla Cybertruck (Image credit: Tesla)

The problem is, this cuts both ways. Now Musk’s own brand is inseparable from Tesla’s, his erratic behaviour and divisive politics become Tesla’s problem too.

As Michael Jordan famously pointed out, “Republicans buy sneakers too”… and the same principle is playing out here in reverse. Turns out, not entirely surprisingly, that the people most motivated to buy an eco-friendly car don’t always share the same politics as Elon.

The maturing market

It’s worth noting that the market as a whole has matured. At the outset, Tesla made electric cars desirable, fast, luxurious, aspirational. They removed the “worthy” stigma and replaced it with swagger. That was revolutionary… but that was also 10 years ago.

Nowadays, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche are making credible electric cars with decades of brand heritage behind them. Chinese manufacturers are offering quality EVs at prices that make Tesla look overpriced. The branding of EVs has shifted from “I’m saving the planet while being impossibly cool” to “This is just a good car that happens to be electric.”

All of which means that for Tesla, second place really does equal first loser. The brand’s whole identity is wrapped up in being the disruptor, the one everyone else is chasing. Coming second – especially to a Chinese manufacturer most people couldn’t pick out of a line-up – takes all the air out of this brand narrative.

A gold-colored Tesla Cybercab parked on a wet city street at night in front of glowing storefronts.

Tesla Cybercab (Image credit: Tesla)

Elon knows this, which is why he’s pivoting to robotaxis and robots right now. “We’re not really a car company” is the subtext. It’s classic brand repositioning when your core business is wobbling. The question is, will anyone buy it?

After all, Tesla has spent a lot of time resting on its laurels. As a result, quality control has slipped, customer service has deteriorated and the CEO has become a liability. The brand promised – and is still promising – the future. But in practice, they’re delivering inconsistent build quality and broken promises, while continuing to talk about full self-driving being “just around the corner”… at it has been for over a decade now.

Key takeaway

Right now, Tesla faces a choice. Focus on being a premium EV brand; the Apple of electric cars. Or embrace the pivot to full tech company, betting everything on autonomous driving to AI.

What they can’t do is pretend nothing has changed. Because the results are in, and the brand that defined an entire category has been outmanoeuvred. For creatives in general, it’s a textbook case in how even the most powerful brand narratives eventually collide with reality.

The question now isn’t whether Tesla can recover. It’s whether they can accept that in the brand game they’ve built for themselves, second place really does equal first loser – and that might mean completely reimagining what winning looks like. Good luck with that, Elon.

Feature image credit: Tesla

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Tom May is an award-winning journalist specialising in art, design, photography and technology. His latest book, The 50 Greatest Designers (Arcturus Publishing), was published this June. He’s also author of Great TED Talks: Creativity (Pavilion Books). Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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In News

Elon Musk said Tesla would finally advertise. It just dropped a video on Twitter — is this its first commercial?

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By Grace Kay

  • Tesla released what might have been its very first commercial.
  • Tesla’s Asia account on Twitter posted a 2-minute driver testimonial.
  • Elon Musk said last week that the company will begin advertising for the first time in its history.

Tesla might have already revealed its very first commercial less than a week after Elon Musk said the company would begin advertising for the first time in its history.

The electric carmaker rolled out a 2-minute Twitter video on its Tesla Asia account called “Drive to believe.” The video appeared to give a peek into the company’s plans for its upcoming ad campaign, which could rely on driver testimonials.

If so, it’s rolling out ads in a relatively low-key way: The Tesla Asia account has only 172,000 followers compared to its main account’s 21 million. It’s not clear if this is indeed the brand’s first advertisement, though many people on Twitter have hailed it as such.

The brand has relied heavily on word-of-mouth in the past — in addition to Musk’s promotion on social media. Last week, Musk called the Tesla promotions on Twitter “preaching to the choir.” Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on the video.

In the video, a Model 3 owner and a mother of two kids said she was initially drawn to the vehicle because of its technology, but has grown to appreciate the car even more due to its safety measures. The video highlights several Tesla features, including the car’s Autopilot feature, infotainment system, and the Tesla app — as well as the “ease” of using an electric car for everyday drives.

“It is one of the greatest gifts that my kid can have in terms of their future,” the woman in the video says.

Musk made the announcement on turning toward advertising after having shunned it previously after a shareholder at the event, Kevin Paffrath — also known as the YouTuber Meet Kevin — suggested that the company needs to do more to let non-Tesla fans know about the company’s products.

Musk told CNBC’s David Faber later that day that he’d only just made the decision at the event. He said Tesla didn’t yet have a clear strategy yet for advertising. Still, the CEO told CNBC he thinks that, in general, ads should be “informative and entertaining” without causing users to regret the time they spent watching them.

Musk told CNBC that he hopes to use ads to combat what he said was misinformation about the brand’s pricing, as well as promote its safety features.

In the past, Musk has said he hates advertising. He’s said Tesla prefers to put its money toward research-and-development rather than promotional content.

By Grace Kay

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In News

Are Elon’s Tweets turning car buyers against Tesla?

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By Rani Molla and Peter Kafka

Concerning!

Twitter has been a disaster since Elon Musk bought the company last fall: Advertising dollars vanished, the site breaks all the time, and it’s now explicitly a home for the worst people on Earth.

And there’s no reason to think any of this will change as long as Musk owns the thing. Because Musk = Twitter. Full stop.

Fine. What about Tesla, the EV company that made Musk wealthy enough to buy Twitter in the first place? That company has also been tightly linked to Musk’s persona, and it seems like it’s doing just fine: Tesla says the last three months of 2022 were its best quarter ever. We should get another update from the company in April.

So here’s an open question: Will Musk’s behaviour on Twitter, and as Twitter owner, ever have an effect on Tesla?

If you have followed the Musk Twitter saga carefully, you’re well aware of Musk’s penchant for saying and doing things you might find repellent. This month, for instance, he publicly mocked a fired employee for his disability. The only real surprise about that incident was that Musk ended up apologizing for it, calling it a “misunderstanding.” A few days later, Musk started tweeting his support for Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman” who participated in the January 6 riot and who is in jail after reaching a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

But people on Twitter spend a lot of time thinking and talking about Twitter. Most people don’t use Twitter. Do they know or care about what Musk is doing there — and if so, will it change their opinion about owning a Tesla?

Some data suggests it could already be happening.

For starters, Tesla is no longer the only game in town when it comes to EVs. Plenty of automakers now compete in the market, and they seem to be making headway. A year ago, for instance, 17 percent of potential EV buyers told surveyors at YouGov that their first choice was a Tesla — more than any other brand. Now that number has dropped to 9 percent, outpaced by both Toyota and BMW.

That sentiment seems to be turning up in actual sales, too. Tesla’s US market share declined to 58 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from 78 percent a year earlier.

There are multiple reasons why you might want to buy an EV that isn’t a Tesla. YouGov says potential buyers say price is most important to them, and Teslas have never been cheap. Safety is also a big consideration for buyers, and recurring reports of Tesla’s issues — like steering wheels falling off and multi-car pile-ups — may not help.

While YouGov hasn’t asked would-be EV buyers if their opinion of Musk affects their opinion of Teslas, it has asked the general population about their opinion of Tesla — and it has been going down since last spring, when Musk first announced that he was going to buy Twitter, and then spent months trying not to buy the company. In November, shortly after Musk bought Twitter, Tesla’s “net favourability” score became negative, meaning more people disliked the company than liked it.

There is, however, potential upside for Musk: While more people dislike Musk than before, more people also like Musk than ever before. Whether those new Musk fans are Tesla buyers, or will ever become Tesla buyers, is a question we can’t answer at the moment.

Again: It’s possible that an expanded EV market, and the head start Tesla earned itself by more or less creating that market, will be enough for Tesla to enjoy record sales for years to come, regardless of Musk’s antics at Twitter.

But it’s been a very long time since car buyers associated their car purchase with the man running the car company — if the words “Lee Iacocca” mean anything to you, you are likely not a young person. We’ve never had a car company run by a guy who’s so addicted to Twitter that he bought the whole company. Now we’re running a real-world experiment to figure out if that was a good idea.

Feature Image Credit: Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images

By Rani Molla and Peter Kafka

Sourced from Vox

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