How the world’s EV capital is reacting to Elon Musk’s meltdown

Across the world, protests are breaking out at Tesla dealerships, with rising intensity. New arson attacks against Tesla cars and infrastructure seem to be happening every single day.

The owners of Tesla’s latest vehicle, the Cybertruck, are reporting universal harassment ranging from cheese slices thrown at vehicles to threatening attacks.

Tesla owners who bought into a progressive vision of climate action suddenly find themselves representing a destructive, authoritarian and climate-denying movement. The company’s share price is plummeting, and the renewables-hating US President Donald Trump is reading out a very literal sales pitch on the white house lawn. 

In short: Tesla is far from being a neutral car brand, in 2025. It has become a physical representation of a truly scary political shift centred in the US but affecting the whole world.

I currently live in a city that we can safely assume has the single highest proportion of Tesla vehicles anywhere in the world.

Norway has led the world in EV deployment: effectively nearly all of the new cars sold are fully electric vehicles. In 2024, around 88% of all new vehicles sold were electric; and about 26% of all registered passenger cars in Norway in 2024 were electric.

The latest data only go to 2023 for passenger car emissions, but they have fallen 33%, mostly due to the deployment of these electric alternatives. 

I was curious to know what proportion of Norway’s EVs are made by Tesla. Walking around on the streets of Oslo they are unavoidable – but Oslo has among the highest concentrations of EVs within the nation.

What the data shows is that only 5% of all registered passenger cars in Norway are Teslas – though a full 20% of all registered pure-electric passenger cars are Teslas. 

As you might expect, there are early signs that Tesla’s sales numbers have taken a significant hit. Tesla ended 2024 as the most-registered BEV model in this country, but only by a hair relative to Volkswagen.

Competitors are cashing in: Kia, in a now deleted post (and in print advertising too) shared an ad with a very clever play on the “I bought this before Elon Musk went crazy” stickers used on Teslas to disown the manic CEO: 

Kia’s headquarters were quick to disavow it, declaring that: “The post was an entirely independent local initiative that does not reflect the position of Kia Europe or Kia Corporation”, and Kia’s Norway team insisted that it was a joke, ‘not intended to offend anyone’, and that ‘we understand humour resonates differently in different countries’. 

What hasn’t happened here is protest: no demonstrations at Tesla’s many showrooms across Norway. I haven’t seen a single Tesla vandalised by strangers. Norway is about to get its first imported cybertruck, direct from America (registered as a “van” so it can get free parking in the city), so maybe it’ll become a target. But I think that’s unlikely. 

In classic Scandinavian fashion, we are not loudly pushing back against Tesla. “Tesla shame” has emerged as a phrase in Norwegian media, and it reflects how we react to things like this: quiet protest and boycott, rather than active protest.

A rival car brand can’t even do a cheeky post without receiving immediate admonishment. Here, Tesla’s downfall will be in the numbers: likely dethroned rapidly from top billing in car sales due to Musk’s ultra-rapid descent into fossil fuel enablement and right-wing destruction.

I’m happy to bet Norway’s overall transition to electric cars barely stumbles over the coming months, too – the availability of new models from alternatives will only increase, and competitors are obviously keen to cash in.

Norway led the world in demonstrating that beginning the shift from fossil to electric is possible – maybe Norway will lead the world in showing how you do it without enabling Elon Musk.