Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
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.
Popular Japanese automaker Toyota has unveiled the barest hints of an upcoming new battery electric…
Smart EV charging company Ohme is introducing a new managed installation service for its home…
German auto giant says it is testing a "world first" solid-state battery-powered vehicle that promises…
Tesla full-self-driving (FSD) enters China in a monumental step for autonomous driving in the world's…
Australian owners have accused Elon Musk's Tesla of overstating its electric cars' battery life and…
Petrol giant Ampol says grid connection delays the main reason it met only half of…
View Comments
A lot of people working at Tesla will lose their jobs if sales keep falling which is so unfair, but the source of the problem doesn't seem to care.
Musk owns 13% of Tesla. When enough of the other 87% are worried about falling sales and brand value they will remove him.
It would need a shareholder vote to force not only Musk but the board of directors out as well, because they all seem beholden to him & will never act to remove him themselves, even if he utterly tanks the company. Why would they, when he's already made them billionaires and has immense power in the current US govt?
YT's Common Sense Sceptic has a call to arms at the June AGM.....for both Denholm AND Musk. Perhaps Donny will declare that meeting illegal.
Thing is too, the company is way overvalued by any measure compared to other carmakers, and it's all due to Musk's influence in areas completely unrelated to the company. I mean, it's PE ratio is 136 compared to an industry average closer to 20.
If Musk was gone from the company, it would be seen as just another EV manufacturer with no irrational hype buoying it up, facing headwinds from a govt that's anti-EV and fast-moving Chinese rival brands.
Shareholders are between a rock and a hard place - Musk stays and the company suffers & share price tanks, he goes and the share price tanks for other reasons.
Look at the threats he made if the board wasn't going to approve his $55B last year. FSD neural learning is on his XAI Grok infrastructure. Robotaxi wouldn't go ahead either. FSD and robotaxi is the golden goose for future profits. Not a lot of money making EVs in small volume. The Roadstar is rumoured to uses SpaceX rocket components as well. All that will hit a brick wall and court cases would cripple the progress of Tesla.
The shareholders own the company so they are in a tricky situation. Short sellers are probably all over the stock
That is not between a rock and a hard place. It is a simple sell signal.
His brother is a board member apparently.
Giles, we sold our Tesla and bought a Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin a year or two ago and couldn't be happier. It's a better car in almost every way. We've all bought in to the marketing idea that Teslas are the best (and they are in some ways), but we really don't need Tesla for the transition.
Absolutely. Giles, it would be a great stand if you were to sell yours....there's plenty of "very fine" EV alternatives around
Excellent. Tesla should simply fire Musk and after all, Tesla is not Elon but rather the many engineers and directors 'below' him. [Same goes for Trump for that matter: many ologarchs and international areshats driving that puppet]
I think Tesla firing Musk would be the biggest boost that Tesla could get.
Just remember the level of aggressive promotion the BoD put up in defence of Elon's $US55 Billion 'compensation' package ......for not being seen doing anything for the BENEFIT of the shareholders - BUT much for the BENEFIT of himself......and the JUDGE is the problem ?!. Such is America.
Seems that Musk has totally transformed into a Trumpite and is willing to trash the company he built, and possibly the entire EV industry, because Trump hates EVs and loves ICEs. (Trump recently exhorted his passion for noisy, smoky ICEs at the Daytona 500.) He's having a great deal of fun ripping up the US Government, which gives him a euphoric high and is much more exciting than something boring like overseeing the progress of Tesla as a company. And to keep himself in good stead with Trump he's had to do a 180 on all of his previous thinking and messaging about the virtues of EVs.
The sales decline will be in some part due to crazy Chainsaw Elon. But also due to the fact that Tesla now has competition, not just from legacy automakers but a non stop onslaught of new and less expensive models from China. Tesla is a big player, but people who underestimate China’s desire to dominate the EV market, as they do in so many other areas, are going to be dissapointed.
If I had a Tesla I'd try and sell it now while it still has some value. As the bodies start piling up, the mayhem reaches into homes, democratic elections (like soon to be Australia) are interfered with, it will feel dirty and shameful just to be seen in one.
No mention of the fact that we are being inundated with new models to choose from now. As other manufacturers, especially Chinese, got their act together and started to produce vehicles of quality, it was inevitable that Tesla sales would be affected.
In addition, Hybrids are becoming more popular and is also eating into EV sales. This trend will only accelerate as buyers come to the view that Hybrids are a better option.
The Chinese are making quality products in terms of ride and handling (when tuned for export markets) and cabin quietness are very good and close to what you get from German EVs, it's just the half baked software in most EVs from China that is dragging them down, so yes, quality issues.
Hopefully people will see PHEV hybrids as very expensive EVs for the EV only range - $50K for 80km of range.
He certainly wears his 'ultra left wing' badge for all to see.
When Trump won office, his dancing around, and fist punching the air, like he did, made me wonder.
I guess with all the money he has, he can be whatever sort of public nuisance he choses to be.
Some of those cartoons are really clever/funny.