Tesla sales across Europe plunged by half last month even as growth in the electric car market picked up pace
LONDON — Tesla sales across Europe plunged by half last month even as growth in the electric car market picked up pace, according to data released Tuesday.
The numbers are the latest indication of how much the Tesla brand is suffering because of the backlash against billionaire CEO Elon Musk over his far-right views.
Sales of Tesla vehicles in 32 European countries tumbled 49% to 7,261 in April from 14,228 in the same month the previous year, according to the figures released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA.
At the same time, sales of battery-electric vehicles by all manufacturers rose about 28%. Meanwhile, sales of gasoline and diesel powered cars slumped.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
“Elon Musk is a Fascist—Stop Tesla” is written on a poster at a protest against the tech mogul in Berlin on January 27, 2025. (Photo: Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“Nobody wants to be associated with it,” said one researcher in the automotive industry.
“Limiting yourself to AfD supporters as customers comes at a cost it seems,” said one Germany-based political scientist on Wednesday, referring to the far-right political party Alternative for Germany, as Tesla sales were shown to have plummeted in the country last month amid CEO Elon Musk’s show of support for the party.
In January, the company’s electric vehicle (EV) sales were down 59% in the Germany, the only European country where Tesla’s cars are manufactured.
EV makers saw sales fall in Germany over the past year as the country ended a subsidy program—but other companies in the sector experienced have experienced at least a partial rebound in sales, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
German buyers purchased electric cars from domestic and Chinese companies, which saw a 54% increase in sales last month.
The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Germans who already own Musk’s EVs have been overwhelming at least one business owner with orders for a bumper sticker that reads, “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”
Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center Automotive Research Institute in Germany, told AFP that Tesla’s plunging sales numbers were almost certainly tied to Musk’s support for AfD, which has been classified as a suspected extremist group by the country’s domestic intelligence agency and multiple courts.
“Tesla and Musk are almost inextricably linked.”
Comments like those Musk made at a rally for AfD last month, where he said “there is too much focus on past guilt” in Germany over Nazism and the Holocaust, have been “extremely damaging,” said Dudenhoeffer.
“Nobody wants to be associated with it,” he said. “Tesla and Musk are almost inextricably linked.”
Earlier in January, Musk stood in front of the U.S. presidential seal on stage at an inaugural event for President Donald Trump and displayed what appeared to be the Sieg Heil salute that was used as a greeting among Nazis. The gesture has been outlawed in Germany since the end of World War II.
Nonpolitical factors, like the impending arrival of the Model Y Tesla, could be at play. But Schmidt Automotive Research wrote in a report that German customers “may well be reacting to Musk’s comments.”
Some segments of the German public expressed disgust with Musk before the EV sales numbers were released this week, with activists projecting an image of the CEO’s salute and the word “Heil” on the outside of a Tesla factory near Berlin after Trump’s inauguration.
Signs displayed at demonstrations on Wednesday took aim at the Tesla CEO as much as President Donald Trump, with some reading, “Arrest Elon Musk” and “De-MusKKK the U.S.”
Some have started directing their outrage at Tesla, as German activists have. On Tuesday, Tesla campus recruiters arrived at Michigan State University to talk to potential future employees, only to be greeted by protesters carrying signs that read, “Don’t be a Musk-Rat!!” and “SUPPORT STUDENTS NOT FASCISTS!!”
Journalist Robinson Meyer mused this week on the social media platform Bluesky that protests at Tesla dealerships across the U.S. could soon follow as Musk continues his efforts to dismantle federal agencies.
Other users shared images of small public actions at a dealership in Burbank, California and elsewhere, as well as graffiti that was recently scrawled on the outside of the company’s office in Seattle, saying, “Nazi Scum.”
