The plunge in Tesla electric vehicle sales across the world in the recent months have been well documented, but nowhere is it being felt quite as deeply as in Europe, where leading market analysts now acknowledge the toxic impact of Elon Musk’s politics on consumers.
Two new data sets released in the last 24 hours underline the scale of consumer push-back in Europe against the Tesla brand as a result of Musk’s far-right political stunts, which have now become the subject of poster campaigns in London and cartoons in European media.
As The Driven reported earlier this month, Tesla sales plunged sharply in many European countries in January, particularly in Spain, Portugal, the UK, France, Germany, Denmark and EV market leader Norway.
Tesla supporters insist it is largely because consumers are waiting for the release of the refreshed Model Y, and observe that Tesla often has a slow start to any quarter. In Australia, they suggest the sharp January falls were in the context of an overall weaker market.
But new Europe-wide data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) shows that Tesla sold just 9,945 units in January, a 45 per cent fall from 18,161 in the same month a year earlier.
That was in a market that saw a 37 per cent boost in EV sales in the month. It meant that Tesla’s share of the EV market in Europe and the UK – never as high as in the US and Australia because local car makers have made more than a token effort to go electric – has plunged from around 15 per cent in January last year to just 6 per cent now.
Meanwhile, new data from respected EV market analyst  Schmidt Automotive Research also highlights the Tesla problems, noting the plunge in sales is not a one-off and cannot be disassociated with Musk’s politics.
Schmidt noted that Tesla’s market share in Europe had been in “free-fall” through the 2024 calendar year, even before Musk openly declared support for Germany’s far right AfD party and said this has “added an element of toxic contagion throughout the market.”
“It’s worrying for Tesla,” Schmidt noted, adding that the “freewill” had begun even before Musk’s open backing of Donald Trump and the AfD, and his antics since inauguration.
“A refreshed Model Y is likely to help from the end of Q1,” Schmidt noted. But to what extent is not clear.
Tesla, it says, will come under increasing pressure from incumbents that introduce more models to help with tighter 2025 EU regulations, and will be looking to lure consumers who snapped up Teslas when Germany was offering €9,000 subsidy handouts in 2022, and whose leases are now coming to an end.
It seems to most like an extraordinary and pivotal moment in the global EV transition, with implications not just for Tesla, but the whole electric vehicle industry, the auto industry in general, and existing Tesla owners, some of whom are wrestling with the idea that they should sell the cars they regard as superior to all others – as a matter of principle, and to avoid vandals.
The Trump-Musk administration is openly attacking the EV market in the US, stripping away rebates, tearing up emission standards, scrapping funding for new fast chargers, and even pulling the plug on more than 8,000 existing charging bays in federal buildings.
It seems so far removed from the Musk “mission” of just a few years ago to stop the burning of fossil fuels and disrupt and tip over three trillion-dollar incumbent issues – coal, oil and big auto.
Musk now openly scoffs at climate science, and is helping the Trump administration defenestrate key institutions that promote science and research, and the regulators that would oversee him.
Musk has so inflamed passions that more than 250,000 Canadians have already signed a petition calling for the government to cancel his citizenship, and recent YouGov polling shows that Musk is viewed favourably by less than 20 per cent of people in the UK and Germany.
A poll conducted last November in the US by the bipartisan EV Politics Project, soon after the Trump election win that Musk backed with $A400 million of his own money, found that Musk is now less popular among EV owners than he is with the drivers of diesel pick up trucks (utes).
He is also much less popular with women than he is with men. And, tellingly, is now poorly rated by voters who think climate change is a serious problem.
In Canada, Tesla has been booted from a Toronto EV driver support program, a Polish minister has called for a boycott of Tesla cars, and in Germany two major companies – an energy company and a leading drug-store wholesaler – have announced they will drop their Tesla company cars and replace them with other brands.
The cartoon and posters illustrated above, one from a Norwegian newspaper and the other from a London bus-stop, highlight just how poorly Musk is viewed by sections of the community. A “hail Tesla” image was projected on to the walls of the Berlin Gigafactory.
Musk, of course, is used to attacks, and it is not so long ago that Tesla was the most shorted stock on the planet, the target of technology naysayers, and the incumbent auto industry.
This, though, is different. EV drivers are used to and annoyed by the practice of “iceing” – the internal combustion engine cars often deliberately parked in charging bays  to prevent others from using it – but are disturbed by the increase in vandalism against cars, superchargers and Tesla stores, slated to the Musk impact.
And it is not clear how Musk can retrieve the situation, if Tesla sales are the key metric. His tech-bro admirers support him, and Tesla owners – including this author – still love their Tesla cars (Disclosure: Both our cars are Teslas).
The sheen is wearing off, even among many long term Tesla fans, as this article in The Guardian underlines. Tesla shares have plunged nearly 40 per cent in recent weeks and are now below the $US300 level for the first time since the November election result.
Tesla has promised to prosecute vandals who damage stores and superchargers. But now the previously unthinkable looms, and the Tesla board may have no choice but to make a decision on their boss’ behalf.
See also:
Tesla hit by Australian class action over range and self driving claims, phantom braking
City autopilot: Tesla FSD enters China with owners showcasing it on city streets
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.