Elon Musk appears be to turning off potential Tesla buyers with his embrace of far-right politicians around the world, analysts say, and the hit couldn't come at a worse time.

Tesla sales plunged 45% in Europe in January, according to research firm Jato Dynamics, even as overall electric vehicle sales rose. That comes after a report of falling sales in California, its biggest U.S. market, and the first annual drop globally for the company last year.

“I don’t even want to drive it,” said Model 3 owner John Parnell, a Democrat from Ross, California, adding that he also is cancelling his order for the company’s Cybertruck, losing a $100 deposit. “He’s destroying the brand with his politics.”

The sales numbers were particularly bad in Germany and France in January, down roughly 60% each, more than the average decline for the more than two-dozen European countries surveyed. Sales in France fell another 26% in February.

More worrisome was the breakdown for Tesla’s individual models. Sales of Tesla’s Model 3 dropped 33% across all European countries even though that car is not being updated and there is no reason for buyers to wait

  • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    The fuck does he care? He is replacing a large chunk of consumer buyers that have shaky purchasing power with government contracts which will pay up front. 2025 defense budget has 400 million allocated for armored teslas. This is over 4x teslas annual revenue at its highest point (96 billion in 2023)

    The stock will bounce to new heights once he can report a revenue of almost half a trillion dollars (of your taxes)

    Edit: as @powderhorn pointed out my math is significantly off by a major factor. I leave my post intact because I fucked up.

      • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        11·
        3 days ago

        You’re correct, in my frustration I did shitty math

        I leave my post unedited to expose my shame

        Edit upon further reflection I did edit my post only to highlight my shame as it appears this got buried and I do not want to promote misinformation

        • AckPhttt@beehaw.org
          8·
          3 days ago

          I’m on the DOGE team, and those values seem completely accurate and verified to me. /s

          Edit: And if they are wrong, by our accounting that means that you just saved the government $399.6 Billion dollars.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
      5·
      3 days ago

      that budget was allocated by the biden admin. It means trump will 100% cancel it “just because”.

      Also: trump cancelled a contract with chargepoint to keep online all the EV chargers in the federal facilities. If they buy those armored teslas then they won’t have a place to charge them anymore

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Just be aware that if you were to do something atrocious like tax fraud, now would be the time to do it. I got audited once before (I was and remain clean), but this makes me 10X more likely to be audited in the future.