You Donut!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 20, 2025
So I hear that April 2nd this year is to be Liberation Day for America.
The day they impose a swathe of trade tariffs.
Apparently claiming they're merely redressing the imbalance. With friend and foe alike being less open for their goods than the US are to them. Friend, it seems, considered sometimes worse.
One headline figure already circulated is on cars. Any not made in America will have a 25pc import duty slapped on them.
I remember studying tariffs on an International Finance module at B-school. Time I'm never getting back. Yet I was intrigued by how after inventing the modern world three centuries back, the Brits levied tariffs before any income tax ever arose.
They create government income. The play then as seems now. Local goods get preferred, helping jobs, growth, wellbeing. Any inflation increase gets offset by the tax breaks able to be freshly afforded, allowing the populace to enjoy their standard of living at the very least protected.
Let's see.
In light of this, the graphic as linked to up-top duly sped around.
Obviously, haters gonna hate. Fans gonna fawn.
It is promoted as where the final car is assembled. Not looking at componentry. And may be a purposely selected eight.
Yet still, its message is abundantly clear.
There is only one all-American car maker. Only one manufacturer supporting a fully home grown workforce. Only one immune from showroom price hikes.
How do you think its marketshare could be affected by these supposed imminent taxes on competitors?
Anyway, donuts, as seen here - annuli; ring-shapes for the geometrically inclined - are viewed by many a pro with contempt. Below piecharts.
Let's not forget the advice of the influential dataviz-ers;
Edward Tufte, “the only thing worse than a pie chart is several of them”
Stephen Few, “save the pies for dessert“
Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, “death to pie charts”
And for good measure, here's opinion from Melbourne uni's Statistical Consulting Centre;
Yet do we have here a rare example that might just suit?
The hole of the donut - the bore of the annulus - houses each logo icon.
The colouring works well. So that the red is in stark contrast to the value areas. Which in turn amplify the three data sets well.
You can swiftly grasp that only one has an all-white dial.
Which surely is the main point.
This template would fit neatly on typical slide dimensions.
Should we have such a signifier where we have fully zero or total for a measure. And if there are four other options that don't. Then we could try showing the five. With legend top-left, two donuts to its right, the other trio underneath. Central icons or initial(s) neatly deployed.
& as footnote here's the in-house Grok AI explaining the above in three sentences, which kinda misses the point;
Elon Musk’s “Yup” responds to a Visual Capitalist graphic showing Tesla as the only car brand with 100% of its vehicles made in the U.S., based on assembly data from January to September 2024, per The Economist.
Critics on X, including Michael Urwin and Peter Herrera-Merino, challenge the graphic, noting Tesla’s reliance on Chinese batteries and global components, with a Nikkei analysis from 2023 stating 40% of Tesla’s battery supply chain is Chinese.
The post reflects a broader political divide, with some users like Gunther Eagleman and Valentina Gomez framing Tesla criticism as anti-American, while others, like Lincs, question Musk’s motives amid his political actions, such as his role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump in 2025.