Tesla sales plummet in the UK, France, and Germany
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Conversation here: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1879785727468163505
Unlike a lot of White South Africans he's English, and they were viewed as outsiders by a number of Afrikaners. Same with with David Sacks being Jewish South African and Peter Thiel being the kid of German expats in ZA.
On the other hand, Roelof Botha tends to remain outside the political limelight despite being from Afrikaner political royalty (his granddad was the Foreign Minister towards the end of Apartheid).
Maybe Musk, Sacks', and Thiel's anger and political weirdness is because they felt like the perpetual outsider no matter where they were.
Musk, Sacks, Thiel, and Botha all must have been 2nd or 3rd degree connects well before the PayPal mafia even started because their parents were all at the top of the social and economic strata among White South Africans (same handful of private schools, country clubs, etc)
You know, he should be able to afford a lot of therapy by very skilled and talented therapists.
He likely do the exact opposite, pay people to tell him everyone else but him is the problem..
https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/satoshi-files-paul...
It is all their when you include him: the unstable personal identity. The contempt for average South African (British or Afrikaaner) while being a minority white. The Sovereign Individualism. The use of the Internet to pioneer new firlds of commerce (telemedicine). The contempt for women. The attempts breed Ubermenschen. And of course, the utter contempt for Rule of Law.
We can also explain much of their behaviour when we look at his life story.
Again not Tony Stark but Justin Hammer.
This is most of the reason I don't have a Tesla. The entire company will fold if Musk takes a bit too much ketamine and has a Roseanne Barr moment.
At that point I won't be able to get parts as the vehicles were built from the ground up to be hostile to third party repairs.
I don't want to be left holding the bag because Elon wanted to smoke a bag.
Rosanne Barr, for her flaws, has never done anything as bad as Elon Musk has done in the past two weeks. He already had his Rosanne moment and then some with the Nazi salute, and soared past her into uncharted territory since then. He has lost his mind.
Maybe this changes if Tesla fires Musk and puts someone competent and accountable at the helm (bring JB Straubel back as CEO, imho). I wouldn’t buy another Tesla until then.
I'd also step back and ask if a PHEV would be sufficient. I don't think that there is any time in the last 3 years that I've driven more in one day than the EV mode range of a Prius Prime or RAV4 Prime which means it would essentially be an EV for me, and they have great reliability reputations.
Maybe I'll drive more longer trips when I retire (hopefully within the next year or so) and then would have to use the ICE engine. A Prius Prime gets over 50 mpg when using the ICE so although the energy cost for such a trip would be higher than for a pure EV it would't be a lot higher (100 miles in ICE mode would be about $5 more than 100 miles in an EV at my typical gas and electricity costs).
Sure, people got the brain eating bug in the past, too, but it seems nowadays it is much more common.
Spiegel (~German equivalent of Time magazine) article about it https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/elon-musk-soll...
She later dated another guy who was taking it for a very long time, and said he had the same type of delusional quirks.
So genuine question: is Musk actually addicted to drugs? Or a frequent user? I keep seeing that around, but I don't know if it's more a joke/meme or serious?
My theory is that after he bought Twitter he no longer had to abide by the rules (since he owns the thing), and combined with his wealth basically no one ever says "no Elon, you can't do that" or "you idiot, that's fucking mental". Also he has tons of people cheering him on (also in that thread). This is not helping keeping him grounded.
If you didn't see all the instability when he was calling folks paedos because they were saving lives, while he was snorting whatever he could find, then I'm not sure what else to say. It was never going to end well, yet techbros pumped up his bad ideas and feeding the ego.
How well is the Boring Company coming along?
My sisters first boyfriend went permanently nuts from mostly that list. I think it was a toxic mushroom that flipped him.
Which I've found to be hilarious btw. :-)
I think about data privacy too. Every automaker sells identifiable location data. I'd normally think of Tesla as being contrarian and possibly better on privacy, but they have a history of passing around photos/videos/audio from inside the cars(!).
I really wish that Apple hadn't killed their car effort. Even without self-driving, it could've been better in many other areas.
It has, unfortunately, nothing to do with it. The prices have risen and people do not have money to spend on cars.
Definitely depends on what segment you're looking at, but US car sales seem to be right back at pre-pandemic levels: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA
The only Chinese challenger brand that has some traction is Geely via Volvo.
You can see this in EU EV industry data as well from JATO (the EU's auto industry trade group) - https://www.jato.com/resources/media-and-press-releases/euro...
Probably depends on the country? I see a ton of BYDs on the road here (Austria).
And in the largest EU markets (Germany, France, Italy, Spain), it's overwhelmingly local players.
Chinese players have started gaining some traction, but that's overwhelmingly Geely via Volvo. And Geely began their expansion abroad largely due to domestic competition within China, with most consumers preferring either a BYD or a Tesla.
[0] - https://www.jato.com/resources/media-and-press-releases/euro...
> BYD registered 17,000 electric cars - 14,000 more compared to H1 2023. In fact, BYD’s rapid growth allowed it to outsell Nissan, Smart, Toyota, Polestar, Citroen, Dacia, Ford, Mini, Porsche, and Mazda. As a result, BYD is now Europe’s 16th best-selling BEV brand - the second Chinese brand following MG, which held 8th place in the BEV ranking.
Would be interesting to know how H2 did.
We'll see in a couple months, but probably not well, because EU EV sales shrank overall in 2024 [0]
> That link talks about H1 2024 and says this about BYD:
Yea, but primarily this - "BYD is now Europe’s 16th best-selling BEV brand".
It's total sales are still dwarfed by existing giants in the EU market, as the H1 24 sales data has shown. The brands it outsold are those that didn't really target EU BEV sales (eg. Ford, Renault) or are conservative in their EV approach (eg. Nissan, Toyota)
The only Chinese firm that has kind of cracked the European market is Geely, and that's because they were able to leverage Volvo to sell a rebadged Geely as the XC30.
[0] - https://www.motortrader.com/motor-trader-news/automotive-new...
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/993281/umfrag...
might be because other brand‘s cars aren’t always recognizable as EVs…
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/new-by...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/byd-wi...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...
It's 27% for BYD and it was introduced end of October 2024, I guess it had no big effect on sales.
End of the day, the biggest EV sellers in Europe remain either Tesla or European conglomerates.
And this is the same story for just about every large economy. No country wants an outsider player selling products that disadvantage local players.
Bikes are still "vehicles". Problem is that stuff like Tesla are luxuries, we simply can not afford that! Bikes are an alternative on the same market.
An alternative that is heavily advertised by our governments! If there is a significant difference between car and bike, you should tell our government!
Not everyone has resources to treat their car as an IPhone!
I can't speak to Denmark, but in India people resort to buying electric bikes because of income. The moment they earn enough to pay for a car loan, they go for it, as people in my ancestral town have done.
That said, even in India, most 2 wheeler/electric bike sales are largely being driven by Ola - India's Uber/Tesla/AWS - because they are subsidizing Ola drivers to buy Ola Electric bikes. And that is what is driving most E-Bike sales in India.
That, even in India the sale of electric bikes has fallen significantly [0]
At the end of the day, in a market like India, if you can afford a car, you buy a car. And if you're buying a car in a market like India, you'd tend to prefer an SUV due to the negative stigma against sedans ("sedans are for p*ssies" mindset is the norm, and drives the popularity of vehicles is HC as the Mahindra Thar) [1][2]
The same mentality exists in the Indian 2-Wheeler/Bike community, with the KTM being treated as the gold standard.
The same "macho" style mentality that makes Pickup trucks popular in North America and Thailand is the same one that exists in India for SUVs (ICE or Electric) or Two Wheelers.
IMO, EVs and especially EV Sedans have done well in the Chinese market because the status symbol ICE car in China has historically been the Audi A6/A8, but in India the equivalent ICE car status symbol wise has been the Jaguar Land Rover [3]
[0] - https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/electric-two-wheeler-sales-dro...
[1] - https://motoroctane.com/news/267798-why-is-everyone-buying-s...
[2] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/why-the-mahindra-tha...
[3] - https://www.cartoq.com/indian-politicians-and-their-land-rov...
European automotive groups like VW will own multiple badges/brands so it won't be as prominent but they continue to retain dominance
[0] - https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/official-figures-s...
Musk has spent many billions of dollars building something his target market doesn't require. Tesla does not currently have product-market fit.
Musk should resign his board and CEO positions and stop interfering with internal decision-making. And refrain from rumored ketamine use.
They just brought that back in the Juniper refresh.
Yet, it sells the best selling car on Earth.
A lot of that is selling just 2 mass-market models. And it only barely beats out the Toyota Corolla, except that Toyota also sells the third highest volume model (the RAV-4) and the 8th (the Camry).
"Only" does a lot here.
The Corolla is the #1 product of a century-old conglomerate. Tesla started mass-producing cars less than 17 years ago.
Tesla hasn't started going down market with cheaper cars. But they've said new, cheaper models will be released by June 2025. We'll see what happens for the cheaper and higher-volume segment of the auto market.
But for now, Tesla has the most popular model with the highest margins.
If I can remove car battery, put it on a cart, and take it to my apartment on 10th floor via elevator, even better! I need to charge it over night!
If I could spare $50k on new car, I would buy ICE before they are banned!
Context differ from country to country, and from cities to countryside within countries, but in places where most of the population is concentrated in high-density cities, small cars or alternatives to cars are much, much more desirable than 2000+kg SUVs. Case in point, in France: more and more city centers just drastically reduce cars lanes and accessibility.
There's also the recent story about a guy running a limo business who couldn't get a bumper for his Cadillac, and had to keep making commercial insurance payments, and of course the car payment, while the car sat and could not be used. https://www.carscoops.com/2025/01/gm-keeps-86k-cadillac-lyri...
You can bypass this process to some extent by walking into the service center without an appointment, hopefully getting a friendly person, and having them ask you to make a service appointment while you stand there (using the app on your phone) so they can then log in, find your service appointment, and attempt to get the system to let them order parts while you stand there (a process that may or may not require a tiny amount of actual technician time because, while Tesla has all kinds of telemetry, this telemetry does not integrate at all with the system by which service centers decide what parts are needed).
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some level of EU-China rapprochement as a result.
When push comes to shove, it'll be less clear.
Other than that, I completely agree - and hope that Europe manufacturing can catch up to China on EVs.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. One sold (Model X), one scrapped (Cybertruck). Oddly, opposite ends of the political spectrum. Both because of Musk’s new brand.
Wherever your locale buys and sells used cars. The price of used Teslas has been dropping at a ~24% annualised rate over the last 30 to 90 days [1].
[1] https://www.cargurus.com/research/price-trends/Tesla-m112
I wonder how long it will take the Tesla board to fully internalise the meaning of that quote.
About 3 in 10 Americans would seriously consider buying an electric vehicle - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/27/about-3-i... - June 27, 2024
If you have to choose, then in this situation choosing A is much better than B, but why alienate any of your customers like this?
https://insideevs.com/news/749741/tesla-ev-buyers-favorabili...
But yeah, probably will definitely get a rivian, especially the new R3!
I still don't know if the heat pump will be as good as Tesla's but it doesn't matter. I don't respect Elon anymore. I still do definitely admire some of his technical talents and ability to ship products. I don't think just cuz a person does a bad thing means they're a bad person.
Realistically, you’ll want CCS and NACS for the foreseeable future.
If the used Tesla market gets flooded, will there be consumer demand for those used Teslas? I suspect that most will be in suburban red-leaning areas in areas that aren't openly EV-technology hostile (something like the Dallas or Atlanta suburbs).
The problem for Tesla is that unlike the prestige effect of used luxury car sales driving new luxury car sales (i.e. BMW, Benz, etc), these cars are being disposed of because they are becoming less desirable. The target market for new Teslas seems to be shrinking among the primary populations who both want and can afford EVs.
Edit: oh and yes, users flagged it. That's nearly always the case with submissions marked [flagged]. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
That doesn't even touch on his enthusiastic role in an administration threatening EU members states, some of our historically closest allies in the past century, with military action. There are great Chinese EVs, even if Musk weren't behaving this way. Of course demand in the EU is cratering.
Teslas valuation is ridiculous, their reported earnings quality is lousy, and their sales comps are deteriorating.
edit: sorry, I'm blocked from further replies and will not be engaging further. The Nazi salute was more than enough, but his Afd speech and Gray/Abramson's comments about his subsequent Auschwitz visit added to the evidence.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/16/elon-musk...
So gays are supporting a Nazi party?
Similarly, funding far-right fascists such as Tommy Robinson https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-fund-uk-far-right-... in the UK another.
I know less about the AfD but anyone supporting Robinson is definitely in the fascist leaning camp.
Chinese EV's do not have any moral superiority over Tesla and I would not be caught driving either.
Anything you can imagine is possible.
But they're not.
Rather it seems very likely that Musk is extremely toxic to the brand at the moment. He is very closely aligned to a president who is actively threatening a trade war against the EU, after all. It would be weird if EU citizens just pretended that wasn't a thing.
Because why buy a Model Y in December at full price, when you can order the new version for the same price?
The Juniper is the last update of a 5 year old model. The reviews says it was well worth the wait.
This take is not supported by the data. Used Tesla prices are crashing across the board. Sales are crashing across the board. Polls show clear negative sentiment towards the brand.
The old lineup isn’t helping. And yes, there will be a blip when the Y comes out. Tesla builds good cars and plenty of people buy on price and quality. But there is a reason most cars come in black, grey and white—consumers are conservative about cars as a statement about themselves. Owning a Tesla, today, is a political statement. Even among those who agree with Musk, most don’t want to signal that day to day.
You want to buy before Trump gets rid of the $7500 EV tax credit?
In the UK trying to help an extremist most people loathe (Tommy Robinson) is not going to make you popular. I am guessing that in Germany a lot of people loathe AfD so there is a similar, probably stronger, effect.
From a UK point of view, even if Trump imposes tariffs on our imports, that might be a problem, but it is not repulsive in the way backing an extremist is.
Tesla Sales Are Tanking in Europe
Teslas were cool for two years running. Look, the MAGA market is a big one. But it’s silly to think something as personal as a car won’t be affected by Musk’s politics. (We aren’t even in the phase where Tesla gets hit with targeted counter-tariffs.)
This is such a weird-but-probably-true take. I know it happens, but it's such a shame. Most people can't even name the CEO of their carmaker, much less that person's political positions. Most people just want to get to work and the store, and have very little other choice than some kind of car. Self expression through highly regulated corporations' focus groups: how sad.
Maybe Tesla's strategy of only 3 models and betting on robotaxis is the right one, but they have a serious risk of falling behind.
The CyberTruck launch has faced significant challenges, to say the least, and Tesla's sales have dropped by 50% in key European markets. In California, the largest US EV market, Tesla sales have also declined significantly. Meanwhile, Hyundai and Kia have seen significant sales increases and market share growth in 2024. These are the facts as they stand.
Well, yes there is - right-wing people are happy burning fossil fuels.
Edit: looks like I'm late to the party -- it was (predictably) flagged, and (thankfully) unflagged after protests.
Every Tesla I see now all I see is a FascistMobile.
Lots of consumers like to talk a good political game but pocketbook issues always seem to take precedence when push comes to shove.
Of course, when the viable alternatives were few or none, that negative brand association would have to be much stronger to affect buying decisions.
Whenever I talk to people in Europe , they always talk about the other options. Tesla is just not competitive there as a brand.
I do hope that one outcome of this stupid tariff war here is that Canada drops the tariffs on Chinese EVs. They exist to protect US brands but we’re losing out on so many great options.
CEO's rarely open their mouths this much.
I liked it so much I got solar for my house from Tesla, along with multiple powerwalls.
Frankly, the car has been an embarrassment to take out into the world for the last three or four years.
With him outing himself as an outright nazi, yesterday I spent fifteen minutes with a heat gun, dental floss, and Goo Gone debadging my car.
I’m profoundly not ok with giving the impression that I am ok with Musk’s abhorrent behavior.
(A) design your own replacement logo (perhaps something subversive), or
(B) stick on a logo from another brand... Maybe an old British/Euro brand? Or a brand associated with gas-guzzlers. Or an old-school rainbow Apple logo.
I've had a complete Mazda 3 badge set from Fleabay in a drawer in my garage that I ordered when he first started skewing right. I picked those because, if you squint right, it kind of resembles a Mazda 3 (and nobody is going to give it a second thought once they see Mazda badges).
Just downloaded from Thingiverse files for blank wheel center caps for the car and, separately, the Mazda logo. Caps are printing now.
Aiming for stealth rather than activism with the de- and re-badging. Activism is for other venues.
I simply buy the best car I can afford that has the ride/styling/features/quality I want. In my opinion, those that don't are out of their minds.
Not sure how associating major consumer purchases with people became a status of being cool or not. I don't really care why people like this buy and sell cars. I guess it's like Apple, everyone wanted to ride the Steve Jobs bandwagon back in the day.
This is the stuff that gets people upset?
Regardless if you care or not, if you buy a Tesla you're also giving Elon more power, again aiding a Nazi.
You may think that's unfair but that's just how it is.
But it seems you just don't care if people are Nazis or not. Maybe the lack of empathy is why you think it's absolutely crazy to nor just consider the car itself?
Sounds like social capital to me, which is the point I was making. My purchases don't relate to social signaling on my part, not sure how we got here.
I mean, people don't have a problem with the iPhones being built by essentially slave labor. Technically if you buy an iPhone, I guess by your logic you're okay being associated with slavery.
Utter nonsense.
You're signaling regardless.
> Technically if you buy an iPhone, I guess by your logic you're okay being associated with slavery.
Yes, to an extent that's correct.
We must remember though that things are never black and white and nobody is perfect.
If you can walk out the door under your own power, then you're not a slave. Check your privilege (and while you're at it, your history.)
If you gleefully throw Nazi salutes while addressing a friendly far-right audience, then you're a Nazi, mentally ill, or both. Either way, I'm not buying a car from you.
Democrats were into being green before any of the post-Roadster cars came out. It's like saying that a ton of people bought iphones did so because they thought Jobs was a genius beforehand. No, they became insufferable Jobs fanboys because they thought the iphone was amazing.
I honestly have found it always very lame to virtue signal by means of buying a car or to cancel by not buying one. Common people generally don't think that way. Real life is not Twitter. At least not where I live.
But that's changing. 3 years ago Musk was just edgy and annoying but everybody still wanted a Tesla. Now when I talk to people in the market for a car they openly dismiss the "Nazi car".
Lucky for Musk that his stock is a fan stock, not a business stock.
The world is watching. You guys in America better fix this shit. And fast.
He was super excited about it at first, but the spring in his step is much reduced now. I feel bad for him.
I mean, true life, I think most people have pretty good experiences with Teslas. The brand was pretty resilient vs. Elon's shenanigans until fairly recently, but now, man, whatever goodwill he had he's busily taken a flame thrower to. We'll probably go EV or hybrid for our next car, and there's no way in hell we'd consider a Tesla AT ALL.
Musk hasn't suddenly changed in the past few months. His deranged/racist behaviour has been going on for years. What has prompted your neighbour to regret his purchase?
Respectfully, that is a minority view.
Did you not happen to see him perform multiple nazi salutes on live TV, during the inauguration of the president of the world's largest economy?
That was Jan 21st. Before then, I was only aware that he was a bit of a dick online.
Now he's radioactive, and with very good reason. He's an evil person who I will do everything I can to not enable.
Remember, not everyone watches Musk like HN apparently does. I knew who he was, and wouldn't have bought one of his cars 5 years ago. But a 27 year old working outside tech and not invested in social media could easily miss the magnitude of his assholery.
Just like everyone knew about the Highland revamp of the Model 3, same time last year.
The Model Y is the most popular car globally, all mainstream and social media covered the Juniper launch.
Humans will routinely overlook bad window dressing like prejudice and authoritarianism if they get some policies they like out of the deal. This has shown itself to be true over and over.
If Dieter, 63, from some economically-disadvantaged part of Germany gets a promise to do something about "those people" coming and enjoying the German welfare state and to focus on issues faced by "real Germans", and he thinks he can get something out of it, he might very well forget that the guy the AfD invited to speak did a Nazi salute.
Same happened in the Midwest with Trump and north of England for Brexit.
As recently as 2023 they were the second-strongest party in Germany according to the polls. [1]
Most Germans today only know of the horrors of Nazism from the history books. They have no real experience with it. There is nothing special about any particular nationality that makes them immune to the scourge of reanimated fascism. The Soviet Union bore horrible losses to the Nazis in WWII and the largest former SSR, Russia, is more-or-less a fascist state today. A salute isn't as alienating as "being left behind" by the world.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_European_Parliament_elect...
[1]https://www.dw.com/en/far-right-afd-emerges-as-germanys-seco...
It's running strong in the racist part of the country. The area of Germany where they were literally tying up people at the side of the road and the police did nothing. Or where a bunch of racists stood and chanted racist chants at a bus and the police made the people on the bus get off. That's the area where they have the racist marches. Aka the poor part of Germany. Where there are poor people there are people blaming someone for them being poor.
But not in all of the former GDR.
> Most Germans today only know of the horrors of Nazism from the history books. They have no real experience with it. There is nothing special about any particular nationality that makes them immune to the scourge of reanimated fascism. The Soviet Union bore horrible losses to the Nazis in WWII and the largest former SSR, Russia, is more-or-less a fascist state today. A salute isn't as alienating as "being left behind" by the world.
You seem to think I'm saying they're immune. I'm saying that a large majority of the country is very anti the far-right. So much so that the CDU had to walk back a vote where they voted with the AfD, this was a vote for a permanent border control. It passed the first vote, the second vote it did not after Germany had massive protests over the fact the CDU broke the unwritten rule that mainstream parties don't cooperate with the far-right parties.
> A salute isn't as alienating as "being left behind" by the world.
I think you think this is profound but it's just showing a lack of overall insight. Being left behind is basically what facists want.
And?
There were people who hated the NSDAP back in the 1920s. Hitler was seen as an egomaniacal leech with no aristocratic roots and a band of street toughs to back him up. No one wanted to cooperate with them in the Weimar Republic.
But the Nazis said the right things to the right people, and developed a voter bloc. After a while, it does not matter if you hate working on legislation with the far-right. They have the votes, and if you want government to "work", you have to cater to their whims.
As there are more and more migrants moving into Germany, and more and more international competition in the manufacturing sector worldwide, you can generally count on more and more people getting interested in at least part of AfD's message.
The fact that Björn Höcke was kept in AfD after decrying the presence of Holocaust memorials on German soil, and was given a token punishment for using far-right propaganda in campaigning, reminds me a lot of Trump's trajectory.
I've taken several long trips in a non-Tesla EV in the United States over the last few years. Never had a problem. Almost every interaction with a public DCFC has been plug and go. Only recently got a NACS->CCS adapter, still haven't needed to use it in about a year since I got it.
Although I heard that FSD was already crippled in eu so maybe they aren't missing out as much.
This is the best Tesla offers in Europe for now
The build quality is crap, the interior cheap feeling, and yes I got FSD and that is the worst part. FSD is only adequate in bumper to bumper traffic.
Any other scenario it's not good enough to drive itself without you babysitting it. So if you have to babysit it, what's the point? It's actually worse to babysit it than just to drive normally, because you get frustrated with FSD's shortcomings (wide turns, inability to merge, sudden freak outs when the painted road lines are obscured).
Make sure you demand new hardware for your car:
https://electrek.co/2025/01/29/elon-musk-finally-admits-that...
Tesla's claim that they had solved the hardware problem eight years ago was a lie:
https://electrek.co/2024/08/24/tesla-deletes-its-blog-post-s...
You can disagree without downvoting this, it's a reasonable take