Summary
A survey of 100,000 Germans found that 94% refuse to buy a Tesla, signaling a major crisis for the company.
Tesla’s German sales dropped 70% in early 2025 after a 41% decline in 2024, despite overall EV sales rising.
Analysts attribute the slump to CEO Elon Musk’s far-right political endorsements, including promoting the AfD party and making Nazi-related gestures. Musk is under European investigation for political meddling.
With Tesla’s reputation plummeting, industry experts predict further losses in Germany’s competitive EV market.
It is already dumb for a German to buy an American car. It is like a French buying an American wine.
Sadly our car industry slept way too long on electric vehicles and instead doubled down on combustion engines, even by fraudulent practices (e.g. Dieselgate).
Teslas were by far the best EVs for a long time. Nowadays, not so much.
Teslas were by far the best EVs for a long time
Were they though? Almost immediately after he stole the company from its founders/creators quality went down. But maybe there was enough residual quality to last him for a few years.
Anyhow, your point stands. Nowadays there’s plenty more to choose from and what then was innovative just isn’t anymore.
Okay, Elon Musk is a giant asshole, but not so big that it warps reality around it. Musk provided money and became chairman of Tesla in Jan 2004. The first production vehicle rolled out in 2005. All Teslas were produced after Musk joined Tesla. And while it could be argued that he did a hostile takeover of Tesla, usually theft doesn’t include piles of cash going to the victim.
Thanks. I don’t get this need to lie about something to make a point.
He definitely made Tesla what it is today. Through that, he and the company single-handedly changed the automotive market forever, forcing other car brands to go EV.
The same is true for SpaceX - people who claim that he’s just some rich-kid CEO who has no idea of engineering and processes have no clue. Just ask the father of the Kestrel, Merlin and Raptor engines, Tom Mueller.
But anyway, it’s all moot now. Elon’s gone rogue, and he may or may not bring the western world down with him. Dystopia is on the horizon.
I mean, it technically may be true, but that’s due to the complete lack of a viable competitor. Teslas are cheap, poorly made death traps. If you use auto pilot your basically being used as an unpaid crash test dummy. If you like being taken advantage of, then a Tesla is for you
In terms of range, Tesla was the benchmark for a long time
As someone from Northern California might not have been the greatest analogy :)
“Nazi-related gestures”
makes nazi salute
“Hitler did nothing wrong”
“Oh, he’s not a bad guy, he’s misunderstood.”
deleted by creator
He did use that “Canada isn’t a real country” line from South Park. So you’re not far off.
Best justification so far: he was just so happy, so in the moment!
🤔 When’s the last time you made an “accidental” Heil Hitler just because you were pumped about something?
…and do it twice, just in case the first “accident” wasn’t enough.
I did notsee related gestures 🙄
If the Tesla board of directors was being responsible to shareholders, they’d have recognized the damage the public perception of Elon is doing to the company and either have him rein it in or outright remove him. However, Elon’s gotten a number of his cronies onto the board, so I don’t think it’s happening unless the shareholders vote out the current board.
It’s also weird because if they get rid of Elon then people would start looking at the actual fundamentals of Tesla which would lead to a much much lower stock price. In December, Tesla was valued at roughly the same as the rest of the worlds auto manufacturers combined, despite selling only 3% of the worlds cars in 2023.
It’s an aspirational brand that is the result of a carefully curated public image. Tesla are notable for their litigation propensity, dubious technical claims and avoidance of benchmarking, e.g., JD Power.
94% say they won’t buy a Tesla car
The rest are the AfD
AfD got 21% in the election though, higher than just 6%. I think it’s like someone else in this thread said - the right don’t want to buy Teslas because electric cars are seen as “woke”, while the left don’t want to buy Teslas because they don’t like Musk.
That’s pretty wild considering the rise of AfD support there.
I wonder if Elon’s endorsement was a detriment to their election campaign.
I mean AfD made it pretty clear they are against Tesla when trying to stop the Tesla plant in Germany.
Not sure how their brains work, maybe they don’t. 🤷🏼♂️
why? Elon supports AfD and I think he’s making it pretty clear that he’s against Tesla too
if he wasn’t he wouldn’t force them to make a truck that’s as disfigured as his body.
Well, they are afraid of electric vehicles, they want the good old polluting combustion engine.
I wonder if Elon’s endorsement was a detriment to their election campaign.
No, definitely not. But imho it didn’t shift the needle upwards either. They’ve been on the rise for a long time and there was no jump during this election.
But the next election in Europe might look different.
And there’s a lot more to be said about American-based social media and far-right populist movements influencing our own flavors of the same for many years now.
This is how we should treat all products and services coming from the US. Promote the European market for a stronger Europe. We have failed here in recent decades. Let’s buy EU products for a better future for our youngest.
Also services. Including Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Those American tech monopolies are now a problem for all to see.
The left don’t buy Teslas because of Elons right political views and his salute.
The right don’t buy Teslas because Teslas being electrical vehicles. Electrical vehicles are considered as left / woke in Germany.
94K=Nein
People should really stop talking about Tesla. Everyone knows what a Tesla is, even people who can’t name any other car brand/model.
