Active commercial competition for Elon Musk?

Other companies are seeing Musk’s deep unpopularity and are starting to exploit it.

Eutelsat, the European alternative to Musk’s Starlink, is already gaining orders from organizations and countries ripping up plans to work with Starlink. But other than reminding the world that they exist, Eutelsat has not gone poaching existing Starlink customers. (At least not in public.)

But now look at Tesla. Alternative EV maker Polestar is running a “Tesla Conquest Bonus” where registered Tesla owners get an additional discount when they buy/lease a Polestar. (The amount is not huge, but it is noticeable, and depends on the version of Polestar.)

While discounts targeting competing brands are not new, there’s no doubt that Polestar is looking to exploit Musk’s unpopularity. Are we going to see other competitors jumping in like this? This would definitely be a trend worth tracking and if it spreads then the adage that “everything Trump touches, dies” may well apply to Musk’s empire too!

NB: This is absolutely not a recommendation/advert for Polestar. I don’t even own a car! Also, I note in the Polestar small print that, where Tesla uses Android internally, it looks like Polestar uses Apple. Apple’s policies may well be a deal-breaker for some people. (I know I would have concerns!)

But if you know any Tesla owners looking for a way out, you might like to point them at this.

• Polestar 2
• Polestar 3