Tesla’s sales in Europe dropped an astonishing 45 percent in January as other automakers saw a surge in electric vehicle demand. The reason for this catastrophic drop is both unsurprising and simple: CEO Elon Musk and his political antics. Because of him, Tesla sold just 9,945 cars across Europe in January. That’s down from 18,161 vehicles just a year ago. At the same time, overall EV sales rose 37 percent on the continent.
Tesla registered just 1,277 new vehicles in Germany last month. It’s the Austin, Texas-based automaker’s lowest monthly total since July of 2021. French sales fared even worse than most, dropping 63 percent to their lowest numbers since August of 2022. Yikes. Tesla also registered vehicle vehicles than China’s BYD for the first time ever in the UK. Its sales dropped almost eight percent in a market that was otherwise up 42 percent in January.
Of course, a drop like this isn’t entirely because of Musk. Tesla also had to switch over production lines for its most popular vehicle, the Model Y crossover. That means Tesla couldn’t get any many Model Ys out the door as it usually would. Still, Musk’s cozying up to far-right political leaders as well as being Donald Trump’s biggest donor and one of his closest advisors, has hurt Tesla’s reputation globally. From Bloomberg:
In addition to barraging leaders in Germany and the UK, Musk has joined Trump in disparaging Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy and disputing polls that have found the president maintains support of the country’s people. In response to Trump’s criticisms, Zelenskiy said last week the US president had fallen victim to Russian “disinformation.”
[…]
YouGov conducted polls in Germany and the UK in mid-January that found Musk was viewed unfavorably and that his meddling in the countries’ politics was unwelcome. The Tesla CEO hosted a live discussion with Alternative for Germany party leader Alice Weidel on his social media site X on Jan. 9 in an attempt to boost the anti-immigration, pro-Russian party that finished second in this week’s election.
During a virtual appearance at an AfD rally later in January, Musk urged Germans to be proud of their culture and discouraged “too much focus on past guilt.” The comments touched a nerve just before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
Musk also called for the imprisonment of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month while advocating for the release of jailed far-right activists.
Some of this nasty downturn for Tesla can be traced to issues the company is dealing with outside of Musk.
Tesla likely was dealing with shortages of inventory in some markets due to the all-out push the company made to boost sales late last year. Changing over assembly lines for the Model Y also may have had an effect on its January registrations.
Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja warned during last month’s quarterly earnings call that the transition to a new design for the model first introduced in 2020 would cost the manufacturer several weeks of lost production. The company builds the Model Y at four plants globally, including at its factory outside Berlin.
The competition — led in Europe by Volkswagen AG, Stellantis NV and Renault SA — also is under greater regulatory pressure to sell more EVs in 2025. Manufacturers must meet stricter CO2 emissions targets in the European Union this year, while a steadily rising share of their sales need to be zero-emission in the UK through 2035.
It’s too early to say how much of an issue Musk’s rhetoric and insistence on being a bastard will be for Tesla, but I feel it could end up having some real, long-term effects on people’s perception of the automaker. None of that will be good, either.
