Since the beginning of the year, Tesla sales have plummeted in Europe amid backlash against the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.
According to figures released yesterday by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the car manufacturers’ registrations fell by 49% year-on-year, falling to 19,046 vehicles in the EU and a 1.1% market share. In February, Tesla’s sales fell by 47.1%, but their market share slightly improved to 1.4% last month, which is roughly the same as Jeep.
Despite Tesla’s fall in sales, registrations of electric vehicles increased in the EU by 28.4% in the same period of time. There are now 255,489 electric vehicles on European roads, and the industry currently has 15.2% of the market share.
Is Tesla’s underperformance tied to Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration?
Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has played a crucial role, there have been calls for boycotts against the car manufacturer in Europe and North America.
Some of the protests against Tesla have been branded by US President Donald Trump as acts of domestic terrorism. The FBI has already created an anti-domestic terrorism task force in charge of probing some of the Tesla dealerships that have been severely vandalized to hold those responsible for the acts accountable.
Tesla drivers all over the world have also been targeted, as many posts on social media show how some of the cars have been vandalized whilst simply being on the road. Indeed, the unpopularity of the brand has forced Mr. Musk to take radical actions, like hosting a Tesla event for President Trump at the White House, a PR move that sparked controversy earlier this month.
TRUMP: "I will label attacks on Tesla, $TSLA, dealerships as domestic terrorism…. We already know who some of them are, we are going to catch them." pic.twitter.com/gT32pw09K4
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 11, 2025
Still, experts say it’s too early to say whether Mr. Musk’s role in the US government has had a real impact on the company. Matthieu Noël, who is an analyst at Roland Berger, told AFP that “Many people are not aligned with his positions, but it is still difficult to say at this stage whether this has a real impact on the brand or if it is temporary.”
Tesla sales have also dropped in the used car market in Europe
The American car manufacturer used to dominate the electric car technology in the European used car market, but is now seeing its sales hegemony being threatened.
Analyses made by AutoScout 24, a platform that centralizes used car listings in the most important European markets like Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, show that Tesla owners are not selling their cars online. The reports show that daily listings for Teslas on the platform have only increased by 3% between February 2024 and February 2025.
Tesla seems to have fallen out of favor with European customers as its market share continued to shrink and sales fell for a second consecutive month this year https://t.co/JWBgVWi23B pic.twitter.com/cmTT4gC8bn
— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) March 25, 2025
The analyses also found that the prices for used Teslas tend to fall faster at a rate of -18.3% year-on-year in comparison to other electric cars at -7.3%.