--- title: "Elon Musk’s Tesla Is Now the Most Hated Electric Vehicle Maker" description: "A new survey report says that Tesla is the most unpopular electric vehicle carmaker in the world due largely to CEO Elon Musk." date: "2025-07-23" modified: "2025-07-23" authors: - name: "Sharon Adarlo" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/sadarlo" url: "https://futurism.com/tesla-most-hated" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Tesla" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "cars" - "elon musk" - "self driving car" - "tesla" --- # Elon Musk’s Tesla Is Now the Most Hated Electric Vehicle Maker ![A new survey report says that Tesla is the most unpopular electric vehicle carmaker in the world due largely to CEO Elon Musk.]() *\Image: Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty / Futurism\* To absolutely no one's surprise, a [new study on electric vehicles]() has found that people *really* hate automaker Tesla — more than any other major EV brand, underscoring a tumultuous year with [CEO Elon Musk's deeply unpopular forays into politics]() leading to [people protesting]() or even [vandalizing Teslas](). A market research initiative called the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report polled more than 8,000 people over the spring and summer and found that Tesla ranked dead last in a list of 19 EV carmakers, with 39 percent percent of respondents having a negative view of the automaker. That number is leaps and bounds worse than the second most disliked EV carmakers — GMC, Kia and Ford — which are all tied at 13 percent of respondents expressing a negative view of them. "Tesla’s brand reputation slide continues," the reports reads, while drilling into the numbers for more detail. "The industry leader remains in deep trouble with consumers, as evidenced by its lowest net positive perception (-13) recorded in our data so far as well as its highest total distrust (48 percent) and lowest trust intensity score (-19) among all surveyed EV brands." Ouch. Another troubling aspect of the report is that people are very skeptical of Tesla's robotaxis, which [debuted last month]() with a [rash of safety incidents](). The report found that most people weren't very familiar with the rollout, but after reading a [*Wall Street Journal* article]() about it, 50 percent of people expressed that they didn't want to use the service and a whopping 53 percent said they were wary about its safety. That's pretty bad in light of Musk's bet that [robotaxis will boost]() the company's bottom line. Just a few years ago, Tesla had a stellar reputation among the public; in 2021, for instance, [polling found]() that it was one of the most-liked companies in America. Of course, that was before Musk [spent hundreds of millions of dollars]() to get Donald Trump elected, then joined him in the White House, taking a [literal chainsaw]() to the federal government before getting in a [blowout public fight]() with the president that's [now threatening his business interests](). The whole mess has clearly caused an immense drop in perception for the EV automaker, which arguably [put electric self-driving cars on the map]() for most Americans. Its sales have also [tanked worldwide](), causing immense financial problems for the automaker. One group that's not thrilled? The company's shareholders, who the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report also polled, finding that 51 percent want him to stop meddling in the government and just focus on Tesla. It's a mighty fall for a much-vaunted company and a man who once [drew comparisons]() to the comic book character Iron Man. Long gone are those days, with Musk now having alienated both the political left and the right — as well as vast numbers of people who went from seeing him as a business genius to viewing him as a [drug-addled](), [incompetent putz](). "I don’t trust him," one woman expressed in [a poll]() conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. "I don’t think he knows what he’s doing." **More on Tesla:** [*Cybertruck Sales Are Dead in the Water*]()