History Repeating: The Rising Tide of Toxic EV Fandom

We may have yet to witness the firepower of a fully armed and operational Tesla fanboy army.

In this momentous week which saw the unveiling of the iPhone 14 -- a device that, like so many iPhones before it, is widely held to be one more than the previous model -- I thought it might be a good time to talk about a favorite subject of mine: fanboys, their tribes, and their patterns. While there's been no shortage of vitriol slung by Tesla zealots to date, based on patterns I’ve seen before I fear we may just be at the beginning. 

I'd like to start by saying I realize that the very term "fanboy" is itself unfortunate, gendered as it is and something that can be equally applied to both good-mannered, loyal fans and dark-hearted, evil ones. Today I'll be talking about the latter type of fanboy in a gender-neutral sense -- though certainly my personal experience of being on the firing line of attacks from these folks has found them to be almost-exclusively male-identifying.

It's those attacks I really want to talk about. In my time at Engadget (I contributed there from 2007 to 2013) I had a front-row seat for the rise of the iPhone, the rise of Android, the fall of Windows Mobile, Palm, and Blackberry, the rise and fall of Windows Phone, and major reboots of both OS X and Windows. To put it another way: I was at ground zero for a whole host of unnecessarily toxic groups of ardent users. I watched as they viciously attacked each other and, whenever I had to weigh in on any product within that multi-system smorgasbord, they turned their vitriol towards me.  I've been accused of having a professional bias in every which way and of being a secret shill for various corporations and even government agencies. 

(One of my proudest professional moments was when I was accused of being both a pro-iPhone shill and a pro-Windows Phone shill on the very same day.)

In my subsequent time focusing more on the automotive industry, I've watched the rise of Tesla plus the (often stumbling) launches of dozens of startups like Faraday Future, Canoo, Nikola, Rivian, and Lucid. While it's that first brand which has managed to rile up the greatest number of uber-loyalist, pro-bono online attack dogs, you might be surprised to know I've seen a growing number of similarly overinvested fans of some of those other brands, too. 

Most importantly, I'm seeing a lot of parallels to that earlier generation of fanboys.

When someone ties their ego to the logo on the hood of their car or the back of their phone, any slight against that brand becomes a personal attack. 

I'm neither a behaviorist nor a cultural anthropologist. I'm just a dude who's received more than my fair share of nastygrams over the years. Given that, I do feel qualified to draw some conclusions. The biggest element I see in toxic fandom is when a person derives a significant chunk of their core identity from the brand or product in question. When that happens, when someone ties their ego to the logo on the hood of their car or the back of their phone, any slight against that brand becomes a personal attack. 

Around the late 2000s, the most vicious battles were between the early iPhone adopters and fans of every other smartphone platform at the time. Really, though, it was the late-stage Windows Mobile users who were most vocal, most angsty as they morphed into Windows Phone zealots. The technologies don't matter, what you had was a situation where one brand (Microsoft) had a near-dominant position in a nascent industry, while a fast-following brand (Apple) was completely rebooting that industry.

Before the iPhone, smartphones were for the rare few who wanted to deal with big, clunky devices with obtuse user interfaces and fiddly styli. Common accessories included belt clips and folding keyboards. After the iPhone, suddenly the smartphone was for everyone. iPhones looked as good as they were easy to use. Those souls who invested the time and money into optimizing earlier smartphones were suddenly pushed into the background, drowned out by a new device that really didn't do anything new.

In 2007, Windows Mobile owned a commanding 42% of the global smartphone market, a market that sold 122 million handsets that year. 10 years later, in 2017, annual global sales surpassed 1.5 billion per Gartner. That early lead, like Blackberry's and Palm's before it, was made absolutely inconsequential.

We're in a similar place when it comes to EV adoption. Tesla is the major player in EVs globally, but the overall EV segment is poised for a similar explosion. As demand skyrockets and more players rush in to fill the need, owning a Tesla will no longer be a novelty. All those people who pride themselves on being able to calculate an efficient route between chargers, all you master hypermilers out there, will find those skills obsolete as charging networks explode and cars offer so much range it won't matter much anyway. 

When that happens, how will those overinvested, early-adopting fans of the brand react? I fear many will lash out as a core aspect of their identity is obviated. 

There's a very good chance that we've only just begun to see the hate and vitriol from Tesla's most toxic fans worldwide. And, with early Lucid and Rivian owners already starting to spice up my mentions, we could be poised for flame wars the likes of which we haven't seen in a decade. 

But there is one wildcard that makes me think maybe history won't repeat: Elon Musk.

But there is one wildcard that makes me think maybe history won't repeat: Elon Musk. At the peak of the smartphone wars it was Steve Jobs vs. Steve Ballmer. While Jobs certainly had some... interesting personal beliefs, he more or less kept them to himself. Ballmer, meanwhile, was bombastic at times but to this day I don't know a thing about his political positions. I'm thankful for that.

Musk, meanwhile, is more than just a CEO for Tesla. He's the company figurehead, its microdosing mascot. His divisive behavior is unquestionably linked to the perception of his company. I've heard from many Tesla-owners who disagree with Musk's positions on things. They're embarrassed by their cars and, with more and more excellent EV choices hitting the market, many will be switching to other brands earlier than they otherwise might have. 

This, I think, might just deplete Tesla's resources in the great vehicular fanboy wars to come. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can all just move on to this next phase of motoring together without all the nastygrams.