Why Tesla owners are rebadging their cars

03/07/2025 03:00 PM

Tesla owners have been spotted putting badges from different cars on their popular EVs.

While some owners have swapped their Tesla motif for Audi’s four rings, it’s not just the higher-end car makers they’re going for, with several Teslas seen donning badges from more mainstream manufacturers, too, such as Mazda and Honda.

Posted to multiple different Reddit threads, it’s not just one or two vehicles, either. It appears to be part of a growing trend of owners attempting to ‘protect’ their vehicles.

There have been reports of Teslas being vandalised due to the brand’s alignment with outspoken CEO Elon Musk and his controversial connection to the US Government.

RELATED: Tesla bumper sticker causes a stir online

Inside Edition (below) reported that multiple CyberTrucks were being vandalised with anti-Elon Musk messages across the bonnet.

This sort of protest is nothing new. In November 2024, we reported on Tesla owners putting the bumper sticker “bought it before we knew how awful he is”. The undertones are that the owner purchased the Tesla before Elon Musk became an outspoken political figure.

It goes back even further than that too. Every two months, 2000 Australians are surveyed by Roy Morgan, an Australian market research company, to find out where major brands sit on the trust and distrust ladder. In 2023, Tesla was rated one of the least trustworthy automotive brands of the year.

Compared to Toyota, the most trusted car brand in Australia, Roy Morgan spokesperson Allen Wei told Drive that Tesla likely sits in that spot due to Elon Musk rather than anything to do with the car maker or vehicles directly.

“Toyota has built a reservoir of trust over many years based on the brand’s reliability and good quality. On the other hand, Tesla has experienced heightened levels of distrust over the last 12 months due to a strong negative perception of Elon Musk,” Wei told Drive.

Why are Tesla owners rebadging their cars?

In recent weeks, Elon Musk has been in the firing line for engaging in controversial behaviour at Donald Trump’s presidential celebration speech in January 2025.

Apart from the aforementioned physical vandalism on Cybertrucks, a letter instructing owners how to sell their cars has also been appearing on the windshields of Teslas in the US.

Not only this, but a poster with the same slogan has been popping up around Europe as a form of gorilla advertising by a group called “Everyone Hates Elon“.

Over the last 12 months, Tesla’s local sales have been in sharp decline.

Figures released by the Electric Vehicle Council show that in January 2025, Tesla sales in Australia fell 33 per cent to 739, compared to 1107 in January 2024.

The Tesla Model 3 – the second-best-selling electric car sold locally in 2024 – suffered the most, with a significant 62 per cent drop, posting 274 sales against 723 in January 2023.

While January is typically a slow sales month for new vehicles, the result is the lowest figure for Tesla in Australia since July 2022, which was impacted by a COVID-related shutdown that saw only four sales officially recorded. 

However, the updated Model Y is due to arrive in May this year, with a drop in sales of any current model common ahead of the next iteration’s arrival. Stock of the older model is likely to be less too ahead of the update coming.

Sales of electric cars overall were also down 43.8 per cent in February (36.6 per cent year-to-date), which was led by a 71.9 per cent fall for Tesla.

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