Tesla is done in Germany: 94% say they won't buy a Tesla car | Hacker News Reader

Tesla is done in Germany: 94% say they won't buy a Tesla car

electrek.co

96 pointsmadspindel71 comments

It seems clear by now that the Tesla brand has completely fallen out of favor with the progressive, high-earning, status-conscious demographic in Germany (their main buyer group). While there are tentative trends toward avoiding US products in general, I see little potential for this becoming widespread. Few people are actually boycotting Apple or Coca-Cola, and most continue to make a clear distinction between the American people and culture (which they consider close friends) versus the current US administration. I wonder how this compares to markets like Canada or Denmark? Are other brands facing similar challenges in those countries as well?

Maybe not exactly the same thing, but obviously the arms industry is going to face some challenges because of the new American foreign policies.

Maybe they will be offset by general increase in arms production, but Europe has alternatives to most of the weapons they currently buy from USA (including strategic air defense). They just need to scale up production.

https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-rules-out-buying-f-...

With more and more alternatives available, not sure why someone would in general buy a Tesla, at least here in Europe.

They are very expensive and apparently not high quality as one would be expecting for that price. Add all the political "things" happening in the last months and that VW, BMW etc are waking up and you'll get a high number of people not wanting to buy a Tesla anymore. Probably not 94% but I think it's pretty close.

What alternatives in Europe?

My wife had to buy a car last year, wanted to buy electric and Tesla was the only one that was ready to deliver within a month and at a decent price per features.

Don't care about Elon but in the end all these corporations building the cars are on the same level of general disregard for the population or environment and just chasing profits. Doubt there is a real ethical choice when buying a car nowadays

Not sure how reliable this is but in line with what you said.

https://www.carwow.de/ratgeber/elektroauto/lieferzeiten-elek...

If you can't wait 2-6 months, I agree Tesla is not a bad option.

Teslas have been very popular in the Netherlands, and by far the best selling cars (Model 3 as of 2019 [0], Model Y in 2023 [1] and 2024 [2]), but sales have been declining for a while now. Though I'm not under the impressions that this has anything to do with Musk's recent actions, in my observation it's just that other car options have become available.

Tesla became very popular because EVs were heavily subsidised and Tesla was the only good EV option for quite a few years. Other manufacturers either didn't have EVs, or they were very impractical, awkward and ugly.

European manufacturers eventually woke up and started introducing EVs, and although they are a common sight on the street now (BMW, VW and Porsche in particular) they are still rather expensive, so Tesla remained popular for a while.

But in recent year Korean (Kia, Hyundai) and Chinese (BYD, NIO, etc.) manufactured cars have matured a lot. Their designs have improved considerable to a point where my friends, who consider themselves hardcore car guys, actually like them. Now a new Kia or BYD (heck, even Hongqi) is becoming well accepted and seem on-par in social status as a Tesla.

So this is purely anecdotal, but in my social circles at least nobody seems to consider Musk's actions in choosing a new car, it's just that other options have become available.

[0] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2019/ [1] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2023/ [2] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2024/

"Nearly a third of Elon Musk’s EV-loving Dutch customers may sell their Teslas: ‘There’s been a debate in the Netherlands around Tesla shame’" - https://www.yahoo.com/news/nearly-third-elon-musk-ev-1017007...

94% comes from a non-representative online poll, but Tesla sales already about halved in 2024 and the first months of 2025 saw another halving to 70+% reduction YoY. So it's certainly quite bad.

But I also wonder, with germany being a very SUV-centric market, if this has something to do with the tesla SUVs (X and Y) just being uniquely butt-ugly. If you have working eyes, there are just so many options which look much nicer these days, and unlike ten years ago there is no big performance gap.

It has to do with other companies catching up and surpassing Tesla. Tesla's are a bad deal nowadays because of build quality and the company slashing prices(which kills resale value). Has tesla refreshed their lineup yet?

Plus the whole CEO is a psycho nazi thing.

edit: yeah, there's an article over on the verge talking aout how used tesla prices are plummeting because everyone wants to ditch their teslas. It's probably a decent time to buy a cheap tesla.

Official sales figures have plummeted here in Sweden as well. I'm not surprised.

"...a couple of Seig Heil..." -- that's not even a thing.

It's "Sieg Heil". I've yet to read German articles doing so many errors when using or quoting foreign languages.

Doesn't change the general quality of any article, but it bothers me, that English speaking journalists seem so outright ignorant when it comes basic proof reading -- names, locations, basic phrased,... often ridiculously botched.

Entspann Dich, and seek hail ;>

That's good zum Abkühlen from all the trolling with which they piesack all our indoctrinated sensivities, or maybe one should say DOS(denial of service), because that shit is not only forbidden by law, but mandated to be BESTRAFT with utmost prejudice!

Why is this flagged?

There is always the answer "some users" found it too political, or not technical related and down voted. Maybe because YCombinator has a certain user base that skews towards being pro Tesla. I don't know how many bots are running here.

Either way, negative Tesla articles are usually "flagged" within a few hours.

So that's why there is a hydrogen bus story on the top page right now...

19% of Germans see AfD "favorably" according to Pew Research.

Even they don't want a Tesla?

there are many reasons why i wouldn't buy a tesla - none is of political nature.

The article states that T-Online, a German news outlet, polled 100,000 readers, with 94% rejecting Tesla and only 3% considering a purchase. While the sample size is unusually large for a survey, the methodology isn’t detailed in the article. Online reader polls, like those often conducted by news sites, are typically self-selecting—participants choose to respond rather than being randomly sampled. This introduces significant bias, as those motivated to participate may already hold strong opinions, especially given Musk’s polarizing public image. Without information on how the survey was conducted (e.g., random sampling, controls for bias), its scientific validity is questionable.

Sales number are not good in germany either, but I know Elon fans have an excuse for this too. Anyway is clear that even if this numbers are not correct Tesla's image is fcked, now buying a Tesla is giving money to a nazi and an enemy (on top of the other Elon's "qualities")

Sales numbers are not good, ok, but a fact is: ID.7 is until now (2025) the most sold e-car. Just in front of ID.4 and ID.5.

https://www.adac.de/news/neuzulassungen-kba/

Even if you don't understand German there is graph showing how many Tesla cars were bought/registered in Feb 2025.

I know in EU Tesla sales are down compared to previous year while EV sales are up. We do not know for sure how much of this is Elon's comments and support of fascists and how much is other cars getting better, but if we wait more data will be available.

I think it's both. There is also a sense of "buy german cars because people are getting fired and losing jobs" etc. (=buy local)

Very difficult to measure, but I wouldn't minimize it.

Interestingly the Tesla Model Y seems to have dropped very quickly, you can also find the year-end report for 2024 here where Model Y was number 1: https://www.adac.de/news/auto-bilanz-e-autos-2024/

If you look at the data for 2023 you can also see that Tesla sold about the same number of any of their model as VW did for the ID series (both ~60k). That seems to have stayed flat for VW in 2024 according to the table from ADAC, but Tesla overall sales dropped significantly to ~30k. If you extrapolate the February numbers they are on track to halve sales again this year, while VW is on track to sell 30k more cars than they did last year (I know extrapolation is not going to be super accurate here)

The whole article is a bad political piece against Musk, with blatant falsehoods, masquerading as industry news.

Yet, so much news is like this.

The so called objectivity of news may be the exception to the rule.

T-Online is generally not representative.

Yeah, if you just phone random people they'll probably say Tesla is bad. It's different to a while later when the news has faded and they are actually buying a car and comparing options.

It's also misleading to frame responses of "aren't considering buying a Tesla" as "won't buy a Tesla", because most of those respondents aren't considering buying any vehicle at all.

"I'm not buying a car! And I'm especially not buying a Tesla!"

The article does not claim scientific standards, and in reality, it is probably not exactly 94%. However, it is likely a very significant amount.

Considering that Germany has never been the easiest market for Tesla, there are many reasons for this trend. Germans like their local manufacturers. It is probably not surprising—and not far from reality—that the majority of people would not consider buying a Tesla at this time.

trust me, this is absolutely NOT about liking local manufacturers ...

Well, besides all other concerns regarding Tesla or electric cars in general, Germany has really HIGH prices for electricity.

That may be included with the purchase, depending on the time and/or model,

but then you are dependent on the supercharger network of theirs,

which hasn't really convenient coverage.

Or you're doing it on your own at home with solar, heat-pump, wallcharger, whatever.

Which isn't an option for many, because Germany also is a nation of RENTERS,

meaning not owning a house, and thus being dependent on the whims of landlords.

Which aren't that enthusiastic about investments in general.

Complications, complications...

Now imagine living there in some large city which has everything, maybe even owning your condo, but not the whole building.

No solar, no wallchargers, and even if, they'd charge insane prices for the charging :)

So search for superchargers it is.

Such luck, there's a shopping mall even in walking distance with a few superchargers.

Phew!

Accessible only through the parking space.

Which is gated by turnpikes.

Which close at 8PM and open at 8 or 9AM (because being german)...

Forget sundays...

Actually I don't even own a car in .de and only know of this because some danish tourists asked me about superchargers for their Tesla on my way home from that shopping mall.

And couldn't believe it, neither could I.

They'd needed to cross the whole town to near the airport, while their Tesla was very low on charge,

which they wasted even more so because of circling around trying to find access past the gates...

Now this happened in Germanys second largest town, and still is the case.

Imagine how this is elsewhere, less dense, but where that rentage thing still applies for many...

Living in the US it still doesn't make sense to me, maybe because somewhere way out there at 2600m altitude near some resort town in the rockies.

I don't really care about the money for solar installation there, but it's impractical because of winds, and snow.

I see this as a phenomenon of the zeitgeist, enjoying gamified crap and virtue signaling, while the infrastructure isn't really there ATM.

So gas it is. Not necessarily guzzling. Just more convenient and practical.

observe how EU is brewing another global humanitarian crisis, war or just idiocracy.

It is ridiculous that it took politics and a trade war to get people to finally stop buying overpriced windows update control-grid pedestrian-mowers that take anywhere between 30 minutes and 12 hours to re-fuel. People are so hooked on their status symbols. He could have made underwear that randomly tazes your balls, and if he charged enough for it, and sold it in cute & seamless packaging, people would buy it!

That's kind of the point of status symbols, isn't it? I have tattoos on my face, but still make more than your doctor. I bought an imported car that's in the shop half the time, but that's just an opportunity to drive one of my other imported cars. I wear underwear that zaps my jimmies every now and again, but... you get the picture.

Now electric car transition there is done, too: they won't buy Teslas, but Chinese electric cars are banned, and European one are incredibly expensive, lose money to their makers, and just plain suck. All hope is for "european" cars made by Chinese brands that are "reassembled" (sometimes by doing as little as bolting the wheels on) from "kits" coming from China. Like Volvo. They are actually decent and may be better than Teslas.

Chinese electric cars aren’t banned, they are tariffed

Big beautiful tariffs, many say they are the finest tariffs they have ever seen.

And then God spoke to me: "Sir, you have the greatest and most beautiful tariffs." And I said: "Yes, beautiful and great. Like the son I never had."

And also chinese cars that are put together in european factories are not loaded with tariffs, so they are starting to do that. I think Leapmotor in a Fiat factory in Poland is first?

That's why Tesla has a factory in Germany. To avoid tariffs.

Tesla is/was the largest importer of Chinese-made cars into Europe. That's why the EU tariffs are decided brand by brand (to spare Tesla and BMW mostly)

Tesla was given favorable tariffs terms by the European commission, even fro vehicles made in China, but who know how long that will last with Musk insulting them daily.

> European one are incredibly expensive, lose money to their makers, and just plain suck

Nice 2019 talking point, bud.

Mercedes is planning a Tesla competitor: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/business/mercedes-cla-ele...

By suck, are you referring to the budget low-range city car EVs?

> European one are incredibly expensive, lose money to their makers, and just plain suck

Not true by any means. There are multiple options available and new cars are being planned / released all the time. Not to mention the second-hand market has ample choice.

Volvo is designed/engineered in Sweden and has a global production network with factories in Sweden, Belgium, the US, and China. You're massively oversimplifying.

>Now electric car transition there is done, too

And right after that, the fight against climate change will be lost.

Electric cars could have been the enabling technology for intermittent renewable power generation. Smart charging and back-feeding into the grid when needed could have largely solved the intermittency problem.

No they are not. Here is an example how you can buy a NIO in Germany https://www.nio.com/de_DE/get-your-nio/kauf

EV is on a decline in general after the end of government subsidies

And Germany is still dominated by local brands. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/germany/2024-full-year-ger...

In February 2025 electric car sales in Germany were up 30% year on year, whereas total sales were down 6%

https://www.adac.de/news/neuzulassungen-kba/

(This link is not dated, so contents will change in the future, the archive.org link is not up to February yet)

Top 10 electric cars (again February 2025):

1. VW ID.7

2. VW ID.4, ID.5

3. VW ID.3

4. Skoda Enyaq

5. Audi Q4

6. Seat Born

7. Tesla Model Y

8. BMW 4ER

9. BMW X1

10. Seat Tavascan

So the top 6 are all Volkswagen. And in total 7 of the top 10.

>Now electric car transition there is done

It is not. Only 18% of newly registered cars are electric i.e. over 80% of the people are still buying new CE cars, to say nothing about the massive used car market which is almost completely CE.

I think you're misunderstanding “done” in the sense of “completed” when they meant “done” to say “dead”.

Or maybe I am the one getting it backwards…

European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers haven’t achieved the economies of scale drive down EV prices, but they are getting better quickly.

Tesla meanwhile has been stagnant for a while, which means people who wanted that that kind of car likely already bought one and don’t see much reason to buy a new one. The poor publicity from Elon isn’t helping but they peaked in 2023 even as total EV sales grew substantially in 2024.

Betting on the inability of German automakers to make cars isn't something I'd do, personally, but OK.

Musk's rightward lurch will be good for the electric car transition. His ideological opponents are just switching to other EV vendors. His ideological friends would normally not have considered buying an electric car, because anthropogenic climate change is a socialist hoax or something, but Trump is instructing them to buy Teslas as a sign of solidarity.

All Musk has done is damage Tesla sales.

It turns out fascist salutes don't help you sell cars.

I disagree that European EVs aren't good.

The Volkswagen range (ID.3, ID.4, the ID.Buzz van) is excellent. Of all the EVs I've driven, the ID.3 is my favorite, far superior to a Tesla. I've driven rented EVs from Skoda, Opel, SEAT, Peugeot, etc., and they're all fine, if boring. If you count any brand available in Europe, Hyundai and Kia both have excellent EVs, including the Kia EV6 and EV9.

Tesla have definitely nailed certain things that other manufacturers have struggled with. They're the only manufacturer that does a good UI (but like many others I deeply dislike that everything is on a poorly positioned screen), and their integration is excellent (things like automatic navigation to a supercharger when it knows it will need to charge to get to your destination).

Tesla have also strived for more practical ranges; I find it really frustrating when other manufacturers launch new cars with 300-350km ranges, which is a step backwards.

I love my Porsche Taycan as well (even if its resale price is dropping like crazy and sales are down), but whenever I travel outside Europe/USA in LATAM, I only see 1 brand: BYD.

The main differentiator why people will switch to EVs is price, and Tesla seems to have stopped competing on it and is bettin on full autonomy instead (which is not a bad bet, as Waymo is achieving it slowly).

We bought our first electric car last summer, we got an VW ID.3 and... we like it a lot. The pricing was pretty good, not much more expensive than a comparable VW combustion car. Apparently the infotainment system was quite bad/slow in older generations, but they fixed that in one of the upgrades and the on in ours is fast and works well.

We couldn't be more happy with the purchase.

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