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Teslas new Supercharger station, which opened on July 21, is nothing like your average stop for gas. The station doubles as a Tesla-branded retro-futuristic dinerand it looks like an ’80s sci-fi movie set crashed in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. The Tesla Diner, which boasts 80 v4 Supercharger stalls alongside a full menu of greasy finger foods, feels like a jarringly fanciful detour for the brand amidst a year thats been anything but upbeat. As Elon Musks prolonged feud with President Donald Trump rages on, Tesla has suffered a constant rollercoaster of stock price slumps, protests, and poor delivery numbers (overall, the number of cars Tesla delivered in April, May, and June this year was down 13% from the year before). Investors are currently waiting with bated breath for Teslas second-quarter earnings report, which is due today. For Tesla, the new diner has actually been at least seven years in the making (Elon Musk first teased the concept in 2018). And, while it may seem like it came out of the blue, it shows that the branded diner is officially having a moment. Over the past few years, companies across a diverse range of brand categories have turned to the pop-up diner format as a kind of set piece to offer customers an immersive brand experience. Here are a few. [Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images] The branded diner phenomenon: part event, part signifier As companies clamor for visibility in an increasingly crowded advertising environment, the lifestyle brand has become a buzzword that companies aspire toand the branded diner can be understood as a physical embodiment of that trend. Lifestyle branding expands a consumer’s brand association beyond a specific core product to a way of living, based on a brand’s values. Brands might achieve this through additional elements like merch (see Erewhons $335 monochromatic sweatsuit), events and activations (see Sweetgreens Sweetlife music festival), and celebrity-backed launches (see DJ Mustard’s recent collab with Heinz), and even in-house coffee shops. Now, several companies have found that the diner pop-up is the perfect venue to act as a brand signifier, because it puts the brand’s values and aesthetics on a public stage. These kinds of activations, which don’t necessarily push a particular product, also build brand affinity, or positive brand association, with consumers. And that’s something Tesla is in dire need of. Lil Nas X at the Chanel Lucky Chance Diner in 2023 [Photo: Sean Zanni/WireImage/Getty Images] How Chanel, Jellycat, and Skims put diners on the menu In August 2023, Chanel debuted a branded diner, bringing the fashion houses distinct flavor of old money luxury to a ’50s-esque pop-up in New York City decked out in pastel greens and pinks. That same fall, a distinctly different brandJellycat, the purveyor of overpriced-yet-unavoidable stuffed animalsalso brought a branded diner to NYC, centered around the whimsical, innocent world of its fake food plushies. The experience has since taken off to such an extent that Jellycat has opened new locations in London, Paris, and Shanghai, as well as launching an updated breakfast menu at the NYC flagship. [Photo: Ryan Gregory/Motion Bazaar/Kellenova] Other brands have similarly turned their diners into an exclusive experience, including Mattels Barbie, which served Barbie-inspired food and drinks at two Malibu Barbie Cafe pop-ups in NYC and Chicago; Cheez-It, which served up childhood nostalgia alongside Cheez-It milkshakes at its ’70s-inspired joint; and Skims, which took over West Hollywoods Mels Drive-In with a specially curated menu. The branded diner formula seems to follow a few simple rules: Creating a space that feels like another dimension, dropping hints at obscure brand lore, and giving visitors access to products they can’t find anywhere else. Each step is in service of driving press and publicity, which, in turn, helps to boost brand reputation and sales. [Photo: I RYU/VCG/Getty Images] The Tesla Diner serves up cyborg fare and futuristic vibes Teslas diner follows that playbook, turning the EV makers recognizably futuristic branding into an experience that customers can literally see, touch, and eat. Outside, the buildings curved silver facade is accented with a round entryway and elliptical windows, and inside, its decked out with booth seating fit for a spacecraft. Visitors can grab a burger in a box shaped like a Cybertruck, watch movie clips at a giant drive-in, and munch on popcorn served by an Optimus robot. One subtle interior design detail you might miss is a low-contrast wall decal that describes the Tesla mission as “accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” The mission-as-mural is notable, considering Musk’s recent spat with Trump on the termination of EV tax credits as part of the administration’s budget reconciliation bill, which passed in July. The bill repealed tax credits for things like clean energy, solar panels, and heat pumps, and terminated the popular EV credit, which will now end after September 30 of this year. [Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images] A Tesla brand activation first The diner is the first brand activation of its kind for Tesla, which has historically relied on nontraditional advertising like word-of-mouth endorsements and Twitter promotion from Musk himself. Given that Musk has arguably lost a fair chunk of his credibility with buyers and investors this year, it’s probably a smart move for the brand to turn its attention toward more conventional channels for the time being. The otherworldly Tesla Diner experience certainly isnt the future of EV charging stations, given that the amount of investment and construction time required would make rapid roll out impossible. However, it might be a way to drum up some more positive brand sentiment during a decidedly gloomy year. The Tesla Diner isn’t going to unscrew the brand (as Fast Company so succinctly put it) eitherbut we have to admit, this might be the best thing its done all year.
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E-Commerce
I recently saw James Gunns new Superman movie, and as I sat there in the dark theater, I couldnt help but think that Nicholas Hoult based his Lex Luthor on Elon Musk. Something about that smirk he kept flashing throughout the movie reminded me so much of the Tesla CEO’s. But Hoults mannerisms werent the only thing. His Luthor had several other characteristics that I, and many others, see in Musk, most notably a savior complex and a need to be adored. Thats in addition to the fact that in this film, Luthor is a tech billionaire with significant contracts with, and influence over, the government. The thing is, during a lie detector test conducted somewhat in jest by Vanity Fair, Hoult told Superman star David Corenswet that he did not base his Lex Luthor portrayal on Elon Musk. Corenswet noted that Hoult had previously said he wanted to make his Luthor as alpha as possible, and asked whether there were any alpha male podcasts Hoult listened to to prep for the role. Hoult replied that he hadnt listened to any podcasts, but he did listen to the audiobook of Elon Musk’s book, even though I didn’t base the character on Elon at all. But I just thought it’d be interesting. [Note: Hoult did not clarify if he was talking about Musk’s official biography, written by Walter Isaacson in 2023, or Ashlee Vance’s unofficial Musk biography, from 2015.] Still, its hard not to spot the similarities between the controversial Musk and Supermans greatest foe. And Superman isnt the first movie with such similarities, intended or not. In recent years, Musk and other tech billionaires have seemed to have served as direct inspiration for movie villains. Yet things haven’t always been this way. [Photo: Marvel Studios] Elon Musk inspired the most iconic superhero of the 21st century Before Robert Downey Jr. starred as Tony Stark in 2008s Iron Man, few people outside of the comic book world could tell you who Iron Man was. Yet, thanks largely to Downey Jr.s portrayal, Iron Man became a household nameand kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has allowed now-owner Disney to rake in tens of billions of dollars in box office receipts over the past 17 years. In the script, Downey Jr.s Stark was charming, intelligent, and slightly arrogant. He leveraged his extreme wealth and technological prowess to make the world a better place. This take on the characterwho had existed in comic book form since 1963was heavily based on Elon Musk. In a 2022 interview with New York Magazine, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus made it clear that the Tesla billionaire was an inspiration for Stark. Fergus said that Stark had historically been a Howard Hughes-style figure, but 2008s Iron Man needed a more contemporary inspiration. Fergus and his colleagues decided that the contemporary Stark was somewhat of a trinity figure, a mixture of three people. The first two were Donald Trump and maybe a little Steve Jobs. But it was Elon Musk who was the guy who grabbed the torch [from Howard Hughes]an industrialist who also would appear in the gossip pages. Trump was fun before he became presidenthe was actually kind of a goofy celebrity. Steve Jobs was always serious and angry; he never quite had that gift of the bullshit . . . Fergus explained. Musk took the brilliance of Jobs with the showmanship of Trump. He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance. Marvel didnt shy away from this comparison, either. After the first film became a smash hit in 2008, the studio quickly greenlit a sequel, Iron Man 2, which came out in 2010. In that film, Downey Jr.s Stark actually meets the real Elon Musk at a party in Monaco and compliments the real-world billionaire on SpaceX’s Merlin engines. Yet, the late 2000s are a long time ago now, especially in terms of politics, culture, and Musks public persona. Musk and tech billionaires are now movie villains Ive previously opined about how the world will likely never have another Steve Jobsa tech leader beloved by the general public. There are many reasons for this. The primary one is that Big Tech companies were generally seen as wondrous institutions improving our lives on a nearly monthly basis in the early 2000s. Since then, their integration with our lives and influence over it have dramatically expandedand not for the better. Tech companies are now largely viewed as self-interested entities that prioritize their profits over the greater good. E-commerce giants destroy small businesses, social media companies engagement algorithms reward bad behavior and poison public discourse, and artificial intelligence firms are so entwined with government and power that one cant help but be concerned about where it will all lead. And because of this shift in public sentiment towards tech companies, a shift has also occurred in the publics perception of the billionaire CEOs who lead them. This is perhaps nowhere more true than with Musk, who has publicly involved himself in governmental affairs of nations like no other CEO before him. All these changes have led, rightfully, to more distrust of the tech industry and those who lead the companies that power it. Suddenly, those same leaders have become the role models for fictional movie villains. It’s hard to watch the 2017 film The Circle and not see parallels between Tom Hankss evil ocial media CEO and Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg. And two films in 2022Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Jurassic World Dominion seem to have patterned their villains after Musk and Apples Tim Cook, respectively. The thing is, no director or actor in these movies has confirmed that any real-life tech CEO is the direct inspiration for these characters. In Glass Onions case, director Rian Johnson denied that the antagonist, Miles Bron, played by Edward Norton, was based on Musk, despite many observers seeing similarities between the two. Thats just sort of a horrible, horrible accident, Johnson told Wired. But he also noted that Theres a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into [the movie], adding, But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment. That weird relevance has lasted years now. And, as Superman shows, it’s easier than ever for audiences to accept tech CEOs as modern-day villains, whether or not that villain is directly inspired by any singular individual. Societys ongoing tendency to now view tech leaders as the bad guys likely means that we can expect more in the future. At least until they own all the movie studios.
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E-Commerce
Just like the dodo and passenger pigeon before it, the affordable new car is about to go extinct as a species. The last new Mitsubishi Mirage model is expected to be sold by the end of this summerand after that, there will be no new cars available for sale in the U.S. for less than $20,000. The Mirage is a fuel-efficient compact hatchback, and until it sells out, it is the cheapest new car on the market. In June it sold for an average transaction price of $18,484. [Photo: Mitsubishi] The Mirage was able to stay so cheap by offering the bare minimum. It’s tiny. And while it has now-standard features like a touchscreen and rearview camera system, it doesn’t have much else. In Car and Drivers review of the final 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage G4, the publication gave the car a 3/10 rating, noting that it was cheap to buy but cheaply made, with a puny engine and drab driving demeanor. “Cheap? Yes. Cheerful? Not so much,” it said. This is a car that gets you from point A to point B. If you want to get there quickly, that’s extra. You get what you pay for. [Photo: Mitsubishi] Mitsubishi said last year that it was ending production of the Mirage, and now there are only some 1,700 left, according to data from the car-services firm Cox Automotive. Based on the current sales pace, the firm predicts the last Mirage will be sold by summer’s end. Buyers looking for the cheapest new car will then have to turn to the 2025 Nissan Versa S ($20,130) or 2025 Hyundai Venue SE ($21,695), per Cars.com. Inflation since the pandemic has hit the automotive industry especially hard, with the average transaction price for a new vehicle rising from about $40,000 in 2020 to nearly $49,000 in 2025, per Kelley Blue Book data. Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have led to increased production costs, and while major automakers have yet to announce consumer-side price increases in response to new import duties, Doug Ostermann, CFO of Stellantis, said during a call on July 21 that he believes we’re coming to the end of that period.” While the Mirage is no-frills, it offered buyers an ultracheap option for when cost was the most important decision-making factor. Without it, the average price of new cars will only continue to climb.
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E-Commerce
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