Early car sales data for January is starting to arrive from countries across the pond, and they paint an alarming picture for Tesla. Sales are crashing in France, Germany, and the UK—all affluent countries that are key markets for Tesla’s electric vehicles. Coming on the heels of a large financial miss, it’s just one more problem for the automaker.
Tesla sales dropped around 13 percent across Europe in 2024, but so far this year, the scale of the problem is far greater. In France, sales of new Teslas fell by 63 percent, while total car sales in the country fell by just 6 percent, with EV sales dropping just half a percent.
Germany was already looking like lost ground for Tesla—its 41 percent drop in 2024 accounted for most of Tesla’s lost sales across Europe. That must make the 59 percent drop in German Tesla sales recorded during January even more painful on the profit and loss statements.
Across the Channel, the British auto industry just released its sales data for January. Here, Tesla sales fell less precipitously—just 12 percent. However, battery EV sales were 35 percent higher in the UK in January 2025 than in January 2024. The cake is growing, but Tesla is getting to eat less and less of it.
In fact, no Tesla cracked the UK’s top 10 best-seller list last month, something that has regularly happened in the past, although that may be due to having just two models for >sale in most markets.
Large declines have also been recorded in Sweden (44 percent), Norway (38 percent), and the Netherlands (42 percent).
Doing a from-heart-to-sun salute tends to hurt sales in UK and Germany, who woulda thought. The stereotype about French is that they don’t care and might even like it, but maybe this is also about build and design quality.
You know it was the French revolution that popularised the guillotine as a means of dealing with wealthy elites?
But yeah I don’t see how Tesla is going to ever repair the damage to their image, unless they can kick musk out and that doesn’t seem likely.
Make a product line of electric guillotines? And dogfood with Musk.
Anyway, the French revolution is not considered a one-sided success.
You may want to read the text before commenting nonsense, the French are not pleased either.
| Sales are crashing in France, Germany, and the UK […] In France, sales of new Teslas fell by 63 percent
I don’t see what justify your attack, it seems unnecessary to attack people based on their nationality. Yes, we do have a far-right issue in France, but it’s pretty much the same as everywhere else in Europe and there is still a resisting left here, not all hope is lost. Also, regarding your comment below, the white flag stereotype for France comes from 2003, when the US and allies invaded and destroyed Irak, but for once France stood against the US imperialism.
___Yeah, fascism seems to be flourishing all over. I’ve never got the impression that France was any worse than anywhere else though.
It actually comes (unfairly) from the French army mutinies of 1917 and (also unfairly) from France’s surrender to Hitler in 1940, in addition to their not joining in the fun in Iraq. All of which obscures a prior thousand-year history of kicking the shit out of people.
I was just joking, but you forgot to say that this
can be made more specific, they were regularly kicking the shit out of Germans. Germans were the suffering side saying “thanks for punishing me, master” for most of those years. Not even counting, obviously, Normans kicking the shit out of English.
Thanks, I was not aware of that.
It’s a joke, it’s supposed to be grotesque. Grotesque is usually different from adequate to reality.
That’s first, second, my comment does incorporate the fact that the French are not pleased either. You may want to improve your skills of processing two-sentence comments.
Oops, this one is four sentences, I guess it’s going to hurt.
What stereotype?
White-flag secretly-fascist Vichy one
Ah, the historically inaccurate, war criminal powered (Bush), meme. I forgot it included also a taste for the Vichy regime.
Strange to mention that and ignore Germany, the country that, you know, back then and now, has always been way more on the right than France.
“Punish France, ignore Germany” is still the current policy.
Germany lost, so it won’t be funny for them.