Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row in Europe
150 comments
·June 29, 2025mrtksn
stavros
This is spot on, I bought a BYD instead of a Tesla because of the reasons above. The build quality was better, the subsidy was great, and the Tesla brand is associated with Musk, so it's not a brand I personally want to touch.
baxtr
And just recently added "shitty brand image (-)"
mrtksn
True. The prince needs to match that to sell. In Europe if you are going to buy a Tesla better have a really good price to compensate for this.
imachine1980_
Brand image is really important ev where already better in china than any other place in the world before Tesla but Tesla give the allure that the tech need to have mass appeal. That's why it was so successful as a company
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Yardsed
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mrtksn
I always assumed that pro-fascism folks don't trust him as he's not really in this for the right reasons. He must be the ultimate poser, "useful for now" in these circles.
tim333
Musk is anti-White?
hayst4ck
I am guessing here, but I believe Musk is in favor of H1B workers because he is in a coercive business position above them. If the H1B workers wanted to strike or say no to clearly unethical directives, he has the ability to effectively kick them back to their home country in 2 weeks, giving him a lot of power he wouldn't have over "white" (I assume GP means "native") workers, which gives him a strong preference for foreign workers. Additionally H1B means a higher supply of labor, which means lower wages, which is a major part of the history of racism and one of the things rich people agitate to distract from their abuse of power.
willvarfar
In Europe EV adoption is really driven by a concerted effort by individual buyers wanting to make green choices. And Musk has completely alienated all support from that buyer base. I don't see Tesla ever recovering its green credentials, and as a consequence ever recovering its sales or second-hand value.
the_mitsuhiko
> In Europe EV adoption is really driven by a concerted effort by individual buyers
Is that true? I would have bet that the adoption is driven by company fleet cars and incentives.
LtWorf
No it's not true.
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mslansn
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moomin
What’s the point in a luxury brand where you’re embarrassed to be seen displaying the logo? I don’t think I’ve ever seen brand impairment like this that didn’t result in the brand being retired. The only way forward I can see for them in Europe is partnership with a European firm and I can’t see that working either.
mslansn
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bogwog
Do people care that one of the most powerful men in the world has become an enthusiastic cheerleader for the ignorant beliefs and dangerous rhetoric that led to the deadliest war in human history?
Yes, I believe they do.
piva00
Yes, they do. When 70+ years old grandparents in Sweden are aware of the bad image the brand brings, it's dead.
When I personally know two cases of that, 70 years old disconnected from internet vitriol, I assume it's absolutely dead.
arp242
If you think "progressivism" is somehow on equal footing as one of the worst genocides in history then you are morally bankrupt. Several of my family died under the Nazi regime, and I'm not even Jewish or other Untermensch group. This is not unusual in Europe. There's a reason purchases dropped off a cliff after the Sieg Heil specifically, and not before when he merely had some questionable politics.
drivingmenuts
That’s the beauty of living in a free country. You can choose to spend money with companies that share your values. Personally, I wouldn’t give my money to a neo-Nazi bootlicker, but you do you.
geff82
Aside problems with Musk it has to be said that the model lineup of Tesla is poor by today’s Euopean standards. We have lots of models and brands available in all sizes, luxurious and expensive to small and fun. Tesla was a great choice in 2019, but now it is just one among many and it doesn’t boast a great design or interesting imterior.
cosmic_cheese
Even in the US, Tesla has problems with lack of variety.
In my case, almost nothing they sell fits in my garage. Even their shortest (Model 3) just barely fits, and there’s no hatch variant like I’d prefer, so I’m leasing a Nissan Ariya and will probably switch to one of those next-gen Leafs afterwards.
palmotea
> Even in the US, Tesla has problems with lack of variety.
Also all their cars (with the exception of the Cybertruck) literally look the same (like Neo in that scene from the Matrix where he has no mouth).
tkiolp4
Is anyone out there who feels sympathy for Elon? His public image is so damaged, I don’t think it can be recovered.
surgical_fire
Elon taught us that empathy is weakness. One needs empathy to have sympathy for the fellow man.
Therefore, let's honor Elon's words and rejoice at his misfortune.
archagon
For anyone wondering, he literally said that the empathy response is “a bug in Western civilization”: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-...
sho_hn
Not much, I guess. His bad behavior goes back a long way, and has hurt many people around him. He used to lie publicly about his first child having died in his arms, when it was the mother's, just to provide a stark example.
He has enough bills to wipe his tears away with, unlike others.
I suspect some of the more recent behavior is attributable to or influenced by drug use, and I feel some sympathy for anyone who comes under their thrall.
archagon
Instead of worrying about the richest man in the world, feel sympathy for the people actively dying from his “wood chipper” tactics: https://archive.is/25XCC
dmead
He threw that out so fast. It's pretty impressive.
TheOtherHobbes
He thought he had Trump in his pocket and didn't need to pretend any more.
Also drugs.
dmead
I do not think we can blame the nazi stuff on drugs. He seems to have a family history of this.
RandomBacon
You can feel sympathy for a person without agreeing with them or having the same viewpoints. I hope there are people out there that feel bad for another living being.
Edit: Yikes. Also, sympathy ≠ empathy.
ttkari
Yeah but you know, there's gonna be a million robotaxis driving around in 2 months time, pinky promise.
octaane
Is anyone surprised by this? Europeans still vividly remember, and are reminded, of the cost of WWII. When the head of a company, no matter how trendy, sieg heils on stage (twice!) and then goes on to publicly appear at far-right german political rallies - europeans take note, and act accordingly.
mslansn
Europe goes beyond central Europe.
johncolanduoni
Maybe it’s the fault of my US centric education, but I must be forgetting that part of Europe that had a fun time during WWII. Even the Swiss spent the time preparing for the other shoe to drop.
isbvhodnvemrwvn
So did scope of WWII.
scarab92
Americans have a poor understanding of what’s going on with Teslas sales numbers because their market largely lacks the competition that exists elsewhere and so they overindex on lesser factors like Elon.
The real issue is simply that Tesla are attempting to maintain their pricing and margins while the cost of producing EVs is plummeting and the variety of options is increasing.
The result is that they are being severely undercut on price by BYD et al.
Tesla are going to have to either start cutting prices significantly, or accept being a low volume pseudo-premium offering.
juandsc
I don't think it's just the Nazi salute to be honest. The reputational damage the US has suffered this year is insane and it's getting worse.
Since Trump was elected America has been awful to its allies, specially Canada and EU. Many Europeans, are avoiding spending money on American companies, much less one owned by Musk.
xanderlewis
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monkeyelite
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sgdpk
We have been pretty well informed of Musk's shenanigans in Portugal. His sieg heil spread pretty quickly.
monkeyelite
Marketing. Being informed of is different than repeated contact with a crafted message.
tzs
Those would all affect the rest of the EV market too, but overall that is up.
monkeyelite
How about the US EV market in Europe?
ChocolateGod
Better value electric cars from China
jeffgreco
EV sales are up 25%.
arp242
It was widely covered throughout Europe. And widely despised throughout Europe across the political spectrum from left to right. To suggest it's unrelated is a profoundly unserious suggestion.
monkeyelite
To suggest that market moves based on antics of a US CEO seems unserious to me.
thuridas
Oh. We know. It is as we didn't have internet.
His association with Trump didn't help
v5v3
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nick_
He went to Auschwitz after being pressured to apologize for some unhinged tweets. This was all before he swig heiled twice on stage.
v5v3
Wow, didn't know that. Thanks.
gambiting
That makes it(for me) so much worse, knowing that he's been to Auschwitz and still decided to do it.
kristopolous
The wealthiest man in the world is want for lack of resources? Unlikely. He's 54, he knows what he's doing.
It's easy to assume that atrocities while they're happening are as unpopular as they are after they happened but they're not.
Population level atrocities are impossible without throngs of gushing supporters waving flags and screaming about "restoring the natural order".
Always look out for flags, crosses and people with money trying to hide behind their symbols with reprehensible rhetoric.
TulliusCicero
If you think Elon could be persuaded to do that, I want what you're smoking.
There's a certain type of person who, when others criticize them for doing some offensive things, their automatic response is just to do it even harder: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786532/-Cartoon-Y...
princevegeta89
I will give you some context here - in my high school (India) we were never taught any of the million horrible things Hitler did to people. We were only taught that Hitler was a very prominent leader and an icon of history that always won wars and held Germany and many other countries in his grip. It was only when I read about him on the internet that I found what kind of an SOB he actually was, many years later.
I was so stoned by all of that and the fact that our education and schooling hid that very fact from all of us. So it is up to us to teach kids when they grow up to allow them to know history as it exactly happened, without painting it, when the time is right.
willvarfar
What was the motivation for the curriculum to hide - or even glorify - Nazi Germany? And do those motivations keen the current students similarly uninformed?
vntok
He did that last year, yet he sieg heiled this year so the effect does not seem permanent or durable..
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/22/elon-musk...
cbmuser
It’s probably more related to the fact that EV subsidies were cut in Germany at the end of last year when the government ran out of money.
You’re only getting a tax discount with BEV, but no purchase discounts financed from taxes.
verytrivial
That still 8,729 too many sold.
afh1
Yet the stock refuses to go down from a PE of almost 200, to the dismay of my options play... :-)
fancyswimtime
no crying in the casino
heavyset_go
It's a meme stock, fundamentals don't matter, just vibes.
vladd
The market can remain irrational more than you can remain liquid.
llm_nerd
Which is precisely why the company cannot split with Elon, and people who think it will are deluded.
Elon has a very loose association with truth, in a manner that usually yields long prison sentences. For many years he has been engaging with what could accurately be called securities fraud, and there is always some amazing new mega revenue stream just around the corner. If Tesla fired Elon (in an imaginary world where he didn't control the board), any competent hire would have to seriously say ooof and point out all of the mega risks the company faces. With Elon it's all magic and fairy tales and soon a trillion super robots and robotaxis to Mars and...
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ck2
When that nightmare budget bill is pushed through next week and they replace EV credits with coal mine subsidies, Tesla sales will crater in US too
If only we could solve starlink pollution as easily but privatize the profits, socialize the costs
windowshopping
What a crazy map. Kind of insane that one company was permitted to launch so many.
ChocolateGod
The map is not to scale, there is gigantically more space satellites between than the map implies.
cosmic_cheese
> Kind of insane that one company was permitted to launch so many.
It’s a good demonstration of how quickly things can go when you don’t have to clear lightyears of red tape and fend off constant obstructionism from NIMBYs and industry incumbents.
We could probably lay fiber at almost the same speed if we could get those factors out of the way, but reality is not that kind and so any large scale terrestrial project like that is a long, drawn-out, expensive nightmare.
ralfd
I’m honestly not sure which group I hate more, the Elon fans who think he can’t do anything wrong or the Musk haters who think everything he does is evil/dumb.
Starlink is an absolute net good.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1938793866389581865
„Connectivity saves lives“
timeonecom
Writing from Germany the first association with Tesla is Musk and following that his Nazi stuff and involvement with the current US chaos. The brand name Tesla is burned and it will need years of good behavior to bring it back to neutral. If Tesla wants to sell cars here, they need a new company name.
The same news from 5 days ago(117 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44374761
I wouldn't romanticize it that much.
Tesla used to be: Unmatched software(+), unmatched electronics(+), Save the planet(+), great subsidies(+), electric car that doesn't look weird(+), USA and Startups and the future(+), unmatched acceleration(+), low built quality(-), Shitty driving dynamics(-)
Now alternatives are pretty good, so still Unmatched software(+) but the difference is not that big and the rest doesn't look good. No longer saving the planet because you don't save the planet with fascists, USA is no longer cool(hostile and clown-like), tech guys are no longer cool(greedy and sleazy and meddle with politics instead of doing cool shit), the design is dated and boring now and there are many alternatives doing much better in many other characteristics.
So Tesla still sells very well when the price is right, match the new situation and it sells. Tasla sells like hot cakes in Turkey for example because they introduced a version specifically for the Turkish regulations and that particular configuration is taxed just %10 when the cheapest petrol cars are taxed %80. AFAIK Tesla keeps selling well in Norway too.