The U.S. electric car company’s sales are sliding across Europe, amid what many see as interference in local affairs by Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk. Tesla’s sales in Germany plunged 59 percent in January, the month when Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive and a close adviser to President Trump, chided Germans for focusing too much on “past guilt” for Nazi-era crimes and urged voters to support a nationalist party in the country’s general election. As Mr. Musk has been intent on slashing the U.S. budget through an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, the electric vehicle company he runs has been steadily losing market share across Europe. The automaker’s sales were down in the three largest European markets for electric cars in January. In Germany, home to Tesla’s only factory in Europe, only 1,277 new Tesla vehicles were registered in the month, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority reported on Wednesday. German consumers turned instead to domestic and Chinese automakers for electric cars, which recorded a 54 percent increase in demand in January. Tesla’s sales plummeted 63 percent in France in January from a year earlier, and 12 percent in Britain, where Mr. Musk riled Prime Minister Keir Starmer through inflammatory social media posts. Sweden, where a mechanics’ strike against Tesla is now in its second year, saw demand for its cars slide 44 percent last month, while sales in Norway dropped 38 percent.
via nytimes: Tesla’s European Sales Drop in January After Musk Disrupts Politics There
siehe auch: Tesla’s sales plummet across Europe Registrations in Germany fall 59% amid consumer backlash against Elon Musk’s political activism. Sales of Tesla’s electric vehicles have fallen sharply across many of its key European markets amid a consumer backlash against Elon Musk’s interventions in the region’s politics. (…) Musk has made an unprecedented intervention in German politics ahead of federal elections on February 23, becoming the richest and most powerful supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party, seen as toxic by German business leaders as well as mainstream political parties, has been triumphant about the support from the owner of X and key aide to US President Donald Trump. Polls suggest it is on track to achieve a second-place finish in this month’s vote with a record high of more than 20 per cent of the vote. Musk last month hosted Alice Weidel, a leader of the AfD, on his social media platform for a 75-minute discussion in which she falsely claimed that Adolf Hitler was a socialist.
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By National Transportation Safety Board – Tesla Model S, Public Domain, Link