Elon Musk’s European crisis deepens—initial April sales numbers prove devastating for Tesla
- Four key EV friendly European markets reported high double-digit drops in Tesla volumes in April with only Norway showing some improvement. So far there has been little sign that the newer Model Y is rekindling interest in Elon Musk's brand on the continent.
Europe, the world’s second largest market for electric vehicles after China, appears to be closed for business to Elon Musk’s Tesla.
The beleaguered CEO may regret returning to the automaker’s headquarters in Austin this month, as the first batch of national markets published car sales figures that show the brand remains in freefall on the continent.
Whether it’s France or Sweden, the Netherlands or Switzerland, registrations of new Tesla vehicles—which lag retail sales slightly—continued to plummet at high double-digit rates. Now their sales numbers are dwindling so much they risk becoming meaningless compared to the United States or China.
Tesla investors have been hoping its historically weak first quarter was an anomaly due to a changeover from the older version of the Model Y on sale in Europe since late 2021 to the newer one complete with some fresher styling to the front and rear.
In advance of the “Juniper” derivative’s March launch, all four of Tesla’s factories shut down their Model Y assembly line for retooling in February, greatly reducing availability and contributing to last week’s historically weak Q1 results.
Plunging sales in France, Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland
The midsize crossover has been the best-selling car of any kind worldwide for two years straight and accounts for about two-thirds of the brand’s volume, so any changeover was bound to distort monthly sales figures.
But Tesla’s European business appears to be in full-blown meltdown. In France, its volume sank 59% to 863 cars for the month. Sweden, where there is a labor dispute between Tesla and the local IF Metall trade union, saw its sales plummet 81% to just 203 vehicles in an otherwise growing market.
In the Netherlands, Tesla sold just 382 cars in April, a 74% dropoff. Switzerland was also a disaster—down 50% to 227 cars.
All these markets are relatively wealthy, have a sizeable EV public charging network and enjoy a penetration rate for EVs far higher than Spain, Italy or most of Eastern Europe. In other words, they tend to be where conditions for Tesla are most favorable.
Instead the lone bright spot was Norway, where volumes grew 12% to 976 cars.
To put that into perspective, the grand total 19,771 new Tesla vehicles registered across all five markets for the first four months of this year is roughly the equivalent of two weeks of sales in China.
Germany and the UK have yet to publish
It’s important to note these figures could still be affected by a slow production ramp and limited availability of the Model Y Juniper. Moreover, a number of car markets have yet to publish their figures. Chief among them are Germany and the UK, respectively the largest and second-largest in Europe.
But for a CEO who has been in the news constantly for all the wrong reasons—whether cheating at video games and lying about it, allegedly failing to pay child support for some of his 14 children, or attacking the judiciary branch for attempts to limit President Donald Trump’s power—the risk remains that he’s inflicted permanent damage on Tesla.
Musk’s political activism in Europe has gone down poorly with local customers. The Tesla CEO has intervened primarily on behalf of white nationalists like English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson in the UK—someone so far to the right even Trump ally Nigel Farage wants nothing to do with him.
In Germany, the picture is little different. Elon Musk vociferously backed the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the recent election, a party that on Friday was ruled a right-wing extremist movement in its entirety and no longer just its fringe elements.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com