Google Trends Interest In “Buy A Tesla” Triples In The US As Popular President Trump Gives Conservatives Permission To Buy The Best EV Sold In The US

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Last Updated on: 13th March 2025, 09:08 pm

As a Republican who has liked electric cars for about 15 years, I’ve wondered when this moment would happen. We all know that a car is more than just transportation to get from A to B. In high school, the car you drove really influenced what other kids thought of you at a time when people are very conscious of their peers (I drove a VW Scirocco when foreign cars were unpopular in rural Iowa). We all know that many people (especially celebrities) bought a Toyota Prius many years ago to virtue signal to others that they cared about the environment when they could afford a Lamborghini. Later, the Tesla became the car to buy to show you cared. I have had hundreds of Republicans mock me for driving a Nissan Leaf or Tesla Model 3 or Model Y. They accused me of doing it to show I was better than they are. I have maintained that I bought the Leaf to save money on gasoline and the Tesla Model 3 for many reasons (performance, efficiency, self driving, reliability, low cost of ownership). Privately, many of my Republican friends admitted Tesla makes great cars, but they wouldn’t buy one because they didn’t want their conservative friends to make fun of them. That all changed yesterday.

Flood Of Famous Conservatives Buy Tesla Cars And Post About It

Now, Tesla vehicles are so good that conservatives have been buying them for years, but mostly keeping quiet about them. I’ve heard Ben Shapiro say sheepishly a few years ago that he bought one. I asked Grok 3 to list some of the famous people that have bought a Tesla to support Elon Musk and it came up with 5.

If you get your news exclusively from left leaning sources, you may not even know that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is wildly popular with Republicans and even supported by a majority of independents and Democrats. This has probably changed, as DOGE has been vilified by some. [Editor’s note: There are three clear issues with this poll when it comes to making the conclusion people support what DOGE has been doing. See if you can spot them. That’s not to say there isn’t much more (superficial and uninformed) support for the DOGE actions than many of us would like to think. —Zach]

Progressives Turn On Tesla

Progressives have traditionally been very supportive of Tesla and its mission to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” But they have recently changed course to betray the company that has done more to bring electric cars to the world than any other. On CleanTechnica, some of our writers believe this will cause the death of the company. But they forget that a majority of the country’s voters support Trump and this could unleash huge pent up demand for electric cars. Progressives have had years to buy electric cars, and you could say almost every progressive that can afford one and lives in an area with good charging has already bought one (an exaggeration to be sure, but you get my point). On the other hand, there are millions of conservatives and libertarians that have noticed that electric cars are good and the Tesla Model 3 and Y are a great value, but were afraid of buying one because of what their friends would say.

Google Trends

I realize looking at Google search trends is pretty old school, as everyone is moving from Google to AI searches (Grok 3 is incredible — if you haven’t tried it, you are missing out), but it’s all I have access too.

Conclusion

Obviously, I don’t know how this plays out. Maybe all these conservatives will look at a Tesla but not buy. Maybe the huge egos of Elon Musk and the president will cause them to become jealous of each other and they will have a great falling out. (That would be entertaining to watch!) But if Elon continues to become a hero of the conservative movement, and especially as Tesla announces new more affordable models aimed right at the center of the US auto market, there is certainly a chance that Tesla sales in the US increase rather than decrease due to the “Brand Damage” caused by Elon Musk’s involvement in government.

If you want to take advantage of my Tesla referral link to get up to $1000 off a new Tesla vehicle, here’s the link: https://ts.la/paul92237 — but as I have said before, if another owner helped you more, please use their link instead of mine. If you want to learn more about Tesla’s new referral program (August 2024), Chris Boylan has written an excellent article on it.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Tesla [TSLA], BYD [BYDDY], Nio [NIO], XPeng [XPEV], NextEra Energy [NEP], and several ARK ETFs. But I offer no investment advice of any sort here.