Tesla Sales Are Tanking in Europe
insideevs.com
insideevs.com
So European Teslas and Hyundai's have used the same plug since then. AFAIK, many UK and EU Tesla superchargers are open to other cars. ( https://www.carwow.co.uk/editorial/going-electric/ev-chargin... )
Hyundai has an EV platform that is shared across a number of models. Sandy Munroe has a video on it and why he thinks it is a great idea
Maybe they are not as common as it seems.
That was on the EV6, though, but they share the same eGMP platform.
1. Software fix
2. Replace fuse
3. Replace the ICCU and be done with it
Mine's in today, Reddit has reports of people being told as late as March. Hyundai Finance is working with customers who cannot get the fix in the near term
However, my calculation is this: It's a 1% impacted issue. Replacing with an AGM battery drastically reduces the issues. Recalls somewhat mitigate this issue further. Apparently reducing your L2 charging rate to < 7kW also reduces this. At the end if you are still unlucky, the ICCU is almost always covered by warranty but replacement is annoying and can take months.
To mitigate I plan to replace my stock 12V with AGM, and buy a portable battery starter.
Below Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Mazda and the like,
Above Kia, Hyundai, Nissan, and way more reliable than Ford, Volvo, Volkswagen, Tesla (who is at #17), GM vehicles.
[0] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
I love the car though, quite happy. Hope they do well with the R2, Tesla could use some cheaper/modern competition.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/09/volkswagen-halts-id-4-p...
Keeping my diesel for a bit longer and eventually buy an EV from any another brand. EU, Korea, China, plenty of choice now.
What a monumental dissolution in brand. I can only hope its felt quickly enough by Tesla's bottomline so it can a) either be reversed, or b) be an example to future entrepreneurs.
P.S: a) could be accelerated with some demonstrated excellence in Tesla Autopilot, it's possible, that would bring me back.
BMW and Tesla both refreshed their i4 and Model 3 models las year. And the improvement in the Model 3 has been noticeable: better efficiency and range, also better driving dynamics and added features. BMW has barely changed anything, same motors and batteries, just a slightly newer infotainment system and new aesthetic. Not only that, some features are actually gone like the laser lights.
The FSD in the Tesla has improved also lots since 2022, while BMW Driving Assistant is still the same we had in 2022. Robust, but no new features.
I think Tesla is really doing a great job of improving their vehicles compared to legacy OEMs. I guess the i4 will only get real improvements with their next model in 2027.
I think there is a big potential to capture the rural more right leaning market with EVs that have more range, offroad ability, and torque than ICE vehicles- but this will be done by brands like Jeep, Ford, and Scout through EVs with ICE range extenders that can operate outside of a charging network.
If you come to the richer southern cities the picture is very different than what you describe. I'm living in Nashville TN right now and there are Teslas everywhere. Many Republicans proudly have big lifted pickup trucks and Teslas (and a LOT of cybertrucks).
So while becoming an outspoken culture warrior may have cost Musk's brand some support in blue states, it has dramatically increased its appeal in "real America" where people love showing off their masculinity through their vehicles.
I suspect the Cybertruck will dominate the legacy auto makers in the EV pickup segment.
It used to be that owning the libs was pretty simple, use more gasoline in a big lifted pickup truck. But now there are other ways to own the libs... you can also buy your electric cars from a rich guy who owns the libs.
It's the free market at work!
In the south today, the big lifted trucks are both status symbols and cultural signifiers. They immediately and visibly identify people as part of the southern / "rural" group (in quotes because many people in this group engage in performative rurality, while in reality they live in sprawly suburbs).
Members of this tribe are also naturally are more inclined to identify as Republican.
So things like the Cybertruck appeal in multiple ways; as Musk is such a vocal Republican, his cool factor goes up with the subset of this group that is extremely into politics. This is one pathway to adoption.
Outside of that, the Cybertruck is a massive pickup truck, and it is very expensive. Vehicle size and expense are both ways to signal status to people in this culture. This is another pathway to adoption.
Hence, I believe that it will become very popular in these areas.
I think the Tesla cars initially succeeded because they proved to suburbanites looking to display their status via a vehicle that electric cars could be "cool" and not "lame." Now, "culturally rural" people have their own equivalent.
I don't doubt that most of them are Teslas, but they're hardly everywhere. Also as of October, they'd only delivered about 27k Cybertrucks globally, so even if you assume 5% went to TN (which seems ridiculously unlikely), that's ~1500 vehicles out of the literally hundreds of thousands of non-EV trucks in the state.
1. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10962 2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-r...
At first they were way ahead technology wise with the first really practical EVs on the market, but seem to be falling behind fast. For example Porsche/VW/Audi released 800v production cars 4 years before Tesla did- and those cars still beat all of the S models on a real track with way lower paper specs. Waymo/Google has self driving tech that works demonstrably way better than Teslas. The offroad vehicle/traction systems on the Cybertruck don't work as well as any of the established 4x4 companies products- or for that matter even any of the 20 year old high end SUVs like a Porsche Cayenne or a Land Cruiser.
What is their advantage that justifies the insanely high evaluation with low sales?
I think 15 billion profit on 97 billion revenue is doing pretty well.
Ford is 4b profit on 176b revenue. VW is 16bn on 322.
> Tesla sales leveled off a few years ago
2024 is the first year since 2011 with a decline (a 1.1% decline), each year prior saw a considerable increase.
These are 2023 numbers, in Teslas latest quarter net profit margin has fallen by nearly half vs 2023 (8.6% vs 15.5%)
I'd recommend trying ones out and picking one. We're not at China-levels of EV options but many do exist at most price/luxury levels. Our other car is a Ford Focus EV which I wish they still sold (I got mine new for $20k about 7 years ago).
Every German EV I saw was an ICE chassis retrofitted with batteries and an electric motor. For example they all had the hump intruding into the cabin space for the non-existent exhaust. Almost none had a frunk - it was needed for batteries or something. As a consequence the purpose built Tesla's were miles ahead. I had no idea why anybody bought these German EV's at time time, but it seemed like most Germans did.
If that's changed and Europeans making great EV's is what is driving down the sales of Tesla's then that is great news. But I live in Australia, and Tesla sales are having their edge taken off them here too. We don't make cars. There is one, and only country making a material dent in Tesla's EV sales. That is EV's from China. (Tesla's EV's sold here are also made in China, of course.) It's mostly because of price.
Despite the noise in the comments, I haven't met a single person who based their decision on Musk's personality. The things that tilt them towards other brands are price and a more conventional design (things like indicator stalks, displays in front of the driver, rain sensors that work). But these other brands are new, and meanwhile Tesla has very impressive service (BYD has suffered from widely publicised failures), an impressive charger network, and a track record. For now Tesla still dominates.
But the real story is China is made just about every EV sold here. The ICE's we import are made in a variety of places Japan, USA, Europe, and recently a few from China. But if this trend continues there will only be one country making the cars we import in 10 years time.
BMWs are decent. Other European brands' EVs are a bit of a joke. Korean ones are solid. US big manufacturers are somewhere inbetween. The Hyundai Ioniq series is probably the best value for money on average for those who don't want a Tesla or Chinese EV.
Outside far leftists, people are still buying and enjoying Teslas. The difficulties in Europe aren’t related to Elon’s politics, you just wish they were.
I think the target audience for this combo are people who love their iPads. I don't love my iPad - I want actual stalks and dials and knobs and buttons in my car so Tesla is not the car for me. In addition to the political intrigues others have mentioned I suspect that Tesla may be reaching the limit of "people who love their iPads" here.
Hired Polestars since. Those just work, are put together properly and shut the fuck up when you're driving.
That is the meme. But at the same time, they put a (barely usable) rear passenger touchscreen in the back seat mid console on the Model 3 refresh, and now they're putting powered back seats in the Model Y refresh. There's no way that's cheaper than a few buttons/stalks here and there.
Is that something they're purely doing to try to catch the hearts and minds of the Chinese market? As I have been led to believe, for a lot of Chinese, the back seat is very important.
USA didn't get the memo, or doesn't want to, thanks to differing corporate priorities and differing user persona preferences. USA manufacturers are (eventually) able to be influenced by customer outcry driving enough media to hit the independent dealer networks, but Tesla feels unlikely to do anything with the memo except file it in the circular bin.
Not sure about your "for people who love iPads" comment. I love my iPad Pro w/ Magic Keyboard + Magic Touch case and LTE modem, but get that crap out of my "control without looking" car experience. OTOH, I learned to drive in Europe.
> EU manufacturers finally acknowledged the safety and usability of physical controls through research
BMW is NOT reverting back to more physical controls. arguably their 2016 to 2024 cockpits (depending on model), iDrive 7, were the best.
Everything afterwards is a ginormous screen with very few physical controls outside of iDrive. The AC controls are the big one for me.
And yeah, the competition is getting much better. I'm seeing a lot of Polestar cars recently, and even a lowly Fiat 500e now advertises 460km range.
Europe has since many years suffered with high bureaucracy, strict regulations and in general low innovation levels.
Musk has been very vocal about those issues in Europe. He might be right or wrong, but questioning European levels of bureaucracy and regulations is not undermining EU, it’s going to help it.
Interview with the afd, using his huge platform for disrespecting politician's etc.
He is a clear threat to democracy.
The fun stopped at that point.
I think the Greeks worked that one out a couple of thousand years ago or so...
Free speech does not mean there is no accountability for what you say.
But let's be honest Elon musk is doing propaganda and the worst version of free speech.
You are not bothered by an oligarch buying propaganda platform? / Making himself one?
doubly so when their main defense of "free speech" is defending neo-nazi's in the pocket of putin
Coincidentally, the US is also longest-standing democracy in the world.
Case in point, I am pretty sure that certain Nazi talking points, such as Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
What we're really talking about is the richest man in the world, who owns one of the largest social media platforms in the world, using his financial and social media power to directly influence politics and/or elections according to his whim, and (it seems) currently to the benefit of causes or candidates who are often right-wing, and/or extreme or anti-establishment in some way.
There's a lot to unpack there, beyond "free speech".
But Musk is not helping or solving any of those problems.
Even conflating the two is idiotic. Sorry.
In a recent interview with the party chair of the Afd, it was clear that he is just entirely clueless about the Germany and history in particular.
There are a lot of issues in Europe, but it is far from clear if neocon deregulation is really helping anything at all.
Note that I don't agree with the AFD at all, however what the media writes about Musk is often so far from the truth that I tend to watch or read the sources when I have a chance.
Musk just finds regulations icky, because he prefers to chase profits without bothering with governments.
EU is fine without rich assholes trying to undermine it.
How is this a problem for him? He should mind his own business as he is not European. He is a South African nazi. Why don’t you ask me instead?
Additionally, not every European country is a member of the EU. I would argue Europe would be a lot better without such centralized power in the hands of a few.
Fundamentally, I believe in a direct, decentralised democracy with Switzerland as a good example. I believe this system of governance gives prosperity and opportunity for as many as possible, while a centralised system like the EU(or USA) gives advantage to the already powerful and well connected, with the masses only an afterthought if beneficial to the ruling elite.
I think this is obvious to any thinking, rational individual.
"Registrations of battery-electric cars declined by 9.5% to 130,757 units in November 2024. This drop was primarily driven by a significant decrease in registrations in Germany (-21.8%) and France (-24.4%)."
https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
Official data: https://www.kba.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Fahrzeugzula...
The automaker’s losses can be attributed to a number of factors, including the increasingly controversial attitude of its CEO, Elon Musk, and the decrease in government incentives. Some European states have reduced the amount of money offered toward the purchase of a new EV, while others have eliminated the incentives altogether.
That said, Tesla’s significant drop in European registrations has largely left the EV industry unaffected. Considering the sheer volume of electric cars sold by Tesla, EV registrations as a whole only went down by 1.4% in the EU, EFTA and UK from January to November and they actually went up 0.9% in November compared to last year. In the EU alone, EV registrations went down 5.4% year-to-date and 9.5% in November.
"...Year-to-date, Tesla registrations in the EU, EFTA and UK went down 13.7% from 327,635 units in 2023 to 282,692 units this year, while the market share shrunk from 2.8% to 2.4%. In the EU alone, which has 27 member states, Tesla’s market share went down from 2.6% in the first 11 months of last year to 2.2% this year..."
Hybrids have increased from 26.5 to 31.2%, petrol and diesel are down.
(It seems daft to concentrate on one month, or to count the number of cars rather than the share of cars sold.)
I found it impossible to do with the tiny buttons on the steering wheel.
Everytime I mention this people argue the indicator buttons on the wheel are fine for them but it’s absolutely the reason I personally did not buy a Tesla. Different markets have different needs and the latest models don’t work in Europe.
I actually think they are dangerous and should be marked as unsafe given my own experience. You do risk a crash trying to find buttons on a tiny wheel.
In the roundabout case it lets drivers know you’re exiting the roundabout and they can enter it. It makes traffic much more efficient but it does need to be enforced since it’s for the benefit of other drivers not yourself.
Trusting the other driver's turn signal when one or both is in motion is a good way to get killed.
Signaling to enter or exit a roundabout communicates no useful information.
You haven't been driving long (or at all) if you think trusting other drivers' turn signals is a good idea. Theories that look good through a bus window often don't work as well when viewed through a windshield.
Entering: No, that's pointless. Of course I'm going to turn as I enter the roundabout. What's my alternative? Entering the wrong way? Driving straight across the island?
Exiting: No, that's pointless. Signal all you want, I am going to wait 2 more seconds to enter the roundabout until I see if you are actually going to take the exit.
If you are on the inside lane of the roundabout and prepare to exit, you signal to warn people already on the roundabout, and tell people waiting to get in that they shouldn't get on the outside lane even if it's free.
If you are on the outside lane and prepare to exit, you signal when the road you'll take is next. Whether you'd personally wait is irrelevant; changing lanes and direction always warrants a signal, roundabout or not.
Source (though in Norwegian, use translate to read it): https://ofv.no/aktuelt/2025/nybilsalget-i-2024-9-av-10-nye-p...
The purchasing power in Spain is considerably lower than in e.g. Germany or France, so very few people are buying VAG or Stellantis EVs as they are perceived as overpriced (and the brands themselves often don't seem to want to sell them, but I won't bore you with that). During most of 2024, the Model 3 made sense for a lot of people in Spain, since it was the only EV that wasn't perceived as a toy car (Dacia Spring) or too expensive (most Volkswagen, etc.). Basically for less money than what the likes of Volkswagen or Peugeot were offering, you got a car with vastly superior specifications (especially range). Hence, it was the best selling EV by far, in spite of widespread negative perception about Musk and about the lack of physical controls.
Things are changing fast, though. On the one hand, the traditional brands are catching up with attractive models with decent ranges at attainable prices like the Citroën ë-C3 or the Kia EV3. On the other hand, the Chinese have entered the market, and even with the EU tariffs, they have attractive options at various price points like the Leapmotor T03 or the BYD Dolphin. So now if you don't actually like Tesla's offering that much, there is no reason to buy it anymore.
Scarce data, of course, but in the first 12 days of 2025, the Dolphin is the best-selling EV followed by the EV3. The Model 3 is far behind so far.
Meanwhile RIP Northvolt, the star of the EU.
Tesla doesn't have any competitive advantage in batteries.
https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-georgia-electric-vehicle-...
But will it continue as a meme stock? Will it pivot into AI? Or just suddenly collapse in price one day?
Considering their now-established history of failure to deliver, the failure of the Cybertruck to catch on, and Musk's authoritarian behavior alienating most customers for his EVs, the prospects for a massive sustainable earnings increase are poor at best. Add onto that an economy that has been excellent for four years and will be difficult to sustain, especially with the new administration likely to undermine it with ill-advised scattershot tariffs and deportations, strong growth seems unlikely. I'd consider yourself very lucky if you had a position that you managed to sell in early December. I certainly wouldn't be buying any soon, but shorting meme stocks is dangerous (even if your thesis is correct, short-term motions can get you stopped out with a big loss before realizing profits).
Can you elaborate on that a little? How does that happen?
BUT, and this is a big BUT, if the price goes up in the meantime, your position goes negative, e.g., if it goes to $800, you are looking at a $40,000 loss. If it goes sufficiently negative that it approaches the point where the other assets at your broker cannot cover such a loss, you will be automatically sold out of your position at a loss. This means the broker will use the other assets in your account to automatically purchase TSLA shares and return them to the loaning party, all at market price.
When there is a large short interest in a stock, this can happen simultaneously all over the market, driving the price to insane levels, as every short must cover their position. This is called a "Short Squeeze". Even if the shorts were right in the end, they all lost. This happened with Porsche a decade ago, driving it's price well over $1000, when it had been $80, and more recently with Gamestop.
There are a LOT more better explanations than mine out there, or maybe some actual finance market guys/gals can weigh in. Here's one [0]. In any case, I hope this helps.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100913/basic...
You short 10 shares at $400 and you have $4500 in your account.
The stock is wildly swinging around and temporarily goes up to $440/share.
Your position would cost $4400 and you only have $4500 in your account, so your broker says "oh no! If TSLA goes up a little more we might never get our money back from this customer" so they liquidate your position while they still can.
I have to change my car in May and it will be probably more expensive or worse car than the Model Y. I need 500+ km range, big trunk, efficiency, silence and confort, acceptable fast charging, heat pump and all for around 50k € max.
The Chinese options are cool but much less efficient. Not that cheap but better equipped. Also no service in some countries where I travel often.
KIA/Hyundai are a bit overpriced and okish but the EV5 is the only I would consider and it's not here yet. The VW group are overpriced and need a new platform. However my current first choice is the new Skoda Enyaq. Otherwise maybe a slightly used VW ID7 but it's too long for parking...
From Stellantis I could consider the Renault Scenic and its clones but I think they are a bit short on trunk capacity and they use too many capacitieve buttons
BMW is out of my reach but they make the best EVs from the ones I tried
Me, and thousands others, loved Tesla cars. Now you can buy a better, more reliable EV for the same money from a company not owned by a man hell-bent on forcing the rise of the far-right in Europe.
If Rupert Murdoch made cars, I wouldn't buy one of those either.
this is a very well known local meme which has been posted around the city. most people here get the reference and it gets called back about half the time i see a cybertruck in company
not saying you should buy one, mind you. just that the stock and his ability to support his behavior are divorced from sales
Another "one thing" that it suggests is Tesla vehicles are not breaking down, and current owners are happy keeping them as long-term owners.
https://folklore.org/Reality_Distortion_Field.html
> he's really funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually tell you that he thinks it's stupid. But then, if he actually likes it, exactly one week later, he'll come back to you and propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it."
And
> He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.
There is not a lot of hard data, but https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51298-public-reaction... indicates he is overwhelmingly unpopular and disliked in the UK.
This is not a political comment. YouGov is one of the best pollers (rankings are based on past prediction quality, and easily confirmed with any search engine if you don't believe this). If a CEO is widely unpopular for whatever reasons and deeply identified with the brand, it will cause a problem.
I'm not being argumentative, but I've never really seen this sentiment before. What has he done to make you feel he's an engineering genius?
They actually want to heir somebody for the chief engineering position, but couldn't really find anybody suitable with the needed experience that wasn't already employed high up at the large defense primes. So really on the top level of the company it was the leadership team of Musk, Mueller, Shotwell, Königsman and Buzza.
And even if you want to claim that, finding the best talent, hiring them, giving them the best possible support while having the best possible business strategy to work towards is also quite impressive.
I guess one could argue that those things aren't 'chief engineer' tasks. I guess that would just be considered 'engineering management'. But again, management is what many chief engineers do a lot of the time.
What you absolutely can't compare him to is just a money man who is largely uninvolved. That is just ahistorical.
So at best one can argue that he is himself not a real engineer but a good manager of engineering teams, both small and very big.
A good recent example would be Musk getting caught paying someone to rank up his video game accounts while taking credit. That's very on point for Musk. Pay someone, take credit.
The Tesla naming is funny because musk is more of the "Evil Edison" than he is a Tesla.
I put Edison in quotes because Edison isn't nearly as bad as Tesla fanboys like to think.
The absolute shitton of failed car and rocket companies, including by people better financed then Musk, indicates this.
I guess you can say 'its just luck', but given that we are talking about two capital intensive industries that were widely considered almost impossible to break into, you would have to argue that he was lucky twice. I guess one can have that position, but I don't really think that's credible.
I guess one can say he isn't a great engineer but good CEO? Because he is the longest running CEO of the space and the car industry, and both companies over the last 20 years have been pretty successful.
Taking Bezos as a comparison, Bezos has been dropping like 1-2 billion per year into Blue Origin for almost 10 years and had a workforce comparable to SpaceX, who were the leader in rockets, sats and space transport of cargo and humans. SpaceX was started with less then 100 million $.
As some point just saying 'he had resources' just doesn't work. At some point you have to evolve your explication.
I’ve seen some counter-propaganda about his engineering endeavors. I don’t know. Should I consume 50/50 pro/anti and make up my own mind? I don’t think that’s worth my time over a cult of personality. There are more important things to investigate.
Recently he posted about disliking Mackenzie Bezo's donations to various far left groups which is rich and laughable.
Speech isn’t interference. Only authoritarians try to take retaliatory actions against speech.
Europe in general is pretty much law-based, so I don't expect arbitrary retaliatory actions.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/06/business/x-banned-a-journ...
At the same time tons of new e-vehicles are coming out from a ton of competitors.
If it has any effect it's as marketing, but that could just as easily be negative here amongst the expected customers of Tesla's other cars.
And the Tesla models are also getting stale.
Also this article is about EU, not Global
"Volkswagen and Toyota were again the best-selling car brands but BMW moved into third place followed by Skoda. Volvo and Suzuki increased sales sharply while Ford and Tesla struggled."
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2024-half-year-euro...
Investors want sold-more numbers not sold-more-than numbers.
Volkswagen PE ratio 3.47
Tesla PE ratio 117.65
Back in 2000, Cisco had a PE ratio of 196.2 It has now been 25 years and Cisco's stock price is almost back at its 2000 price (current PE ratio is 25.22).
Nowadays, Alphabet (Google) has a PE ratio of 25.72.
The sales of Tesla are not that great given the past 5 years and the investors are paying 117 times the future earnings.
What could go wrong?
Given the current situation, I bet it says that stock is overpriced/valued.