The waves of Tesla buyers can approximately be summarized as
Environmentalists
Tech nerds
People wanting to show they have Tesla money
Fans of Elon Musk’s conservative political stances
Each step has seen the brand increasingly more associated with jerkasses to the point that at this point I’m less likely to assume a BMW driver is a jerkass than a Tesla driver
From my time in Japan, the driving manners there are a world away from other western countries, but I think the difference is marketing and customers.
For decades BMW has been marketed in the angloshpere (US,UK,AUS,NZ,CAN) as The Ultimate Driving Machine and this has attracted the type of customer who see themselves as would be race drivers. Every car trip is a race and every other car is a competitor who must be passed.
Because of their size and association with masculinity a certain kind of insecure man in the United States will buy them to compensate for his insecurity. That same kind of man will also flex his masculinity by being rude and demeaning to people he sees as lesser, which builds an association.
The waves of Tesla buyers can approximately be summarized as
Each step has seen the brand increasingly more associated with jerkasses to the point that at this point I’m less likely to assume a BMW driver is a jerkass than a Tesla driver
What makes BMW drivers ass, actually? I’m in Japan, and I don’t see that pattern.
A common joke over here is that BMWs don’t come with the turn signal installed because their drivers are stereotyped as bad drivers who don’t signal.
I run into plenty of them anecdotally, and I can’t say if I see them any more often than not
From my time in Japan, the driving manners there are a world away from other western countries, but I think the difference is marketing and customers.
For decades BMW has been marketed in the angloshpere (US,UK,AUS,NZ,CAN) as The Ultimate Driving Machine and this has attracted the type of customer who see themselves as would be race drivers. Every car trip is a race and every other car is a competitor who must be passed.
This explains a lot
I know one guy who considers it the safest driving machine and regards all other cars as deathtraps.
He should really be driving something like a brown Volvo 240 wagon (brown is the safest color) and be factually right
Because of their size and association with masculinity a certain kind of insecure man in the United States will buy them to compensate for his insecurity. That same kind of man will also flex his masculinity by being rude and demeaning to people he sees as lesser, which builds an association.
BMWs aren’t exactly known for being big though, they’re mostly sports cars