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.
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21 Comments
talldayo
And I'd buy one too if the interiors weren't worse than an entry-level Toyota. And if the internals weren't locked down like an iPhone going through puberty.
bryanlarsen
Essentially duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42922298
jfkrrorj
Chinese have far better and cheaper EV cars. Getting spare parts for Tesla in Europe is a nightmare!
m_a_g
Good. Hit Elon where it hurts.
Mistletoe
Gee I wonder what could have caused this? I’m glad I was early to the party when we cancelled ours when Elon insinuated in a tweet there might be a valid reason for Nancy Pelosi’s husband to have been hit in the head with a hammer in his home.
Every Tesla I see now all I see is a FascistMobile.
that_guy_iain
I think the AfD is going to find that tying themselves with Elon Musk might bring around the hardcore folk who would have gone with fringe political groups it's going to drive away the centre-right. Linking yourself with a guy who did what is considered within Germany to be a Hitler salute is probably not going to go too well for them.
leesec
Well, Model Y was best selling car in the world for 2 years running. Seems a likely candidate to be again. This is probably due to flipping over inventory for the new Model Y to launch
platypii
FSD makes Tesla superior to any car out there. No other car comes even close.
Although I heard that FSD was already crippled in eu so maybe they aren't missing out as much.
lnsru
It was an open secret for a while, that new model Y is coming. So why buy an old one when few months in the future you can get current model and not the outdated one. Everyone is just waiting to buy new model Y. I took the risk, got old one year ago and now I am very happy, that the new one is rather facelift with couple percent better range and not a revolutionary upgrade. This would be pity. I am just wondering about price strategy, because new one is expensive at the beginning.
rcMgD2BwE72F
Anyone remotely interested in buying the most popular Tesla model (Y) have been waiting for the 2025 update, code-named Juniper. It's been rumored for months and finally launched in Europe on January 24, 2025.
Just like everyone knew about the Highland revamp of the Model 3, same time last year.
The Model Y is the most popular car globally, all mainstream and social media covered the Juniper launch.
jaggs
[flagged]
KindAndFriendly
I live in San Mateo County, CA and in my street 3 neighbors have sold their Teslas within the last 8 weeks and switched to other brands.
throwaway5752
I wouldn't buy a Tesla today if it alchemically transmuted atmospheric carbon dioxide into an ounce of gold that pooped out of the front console every 1000 miles. Most of Tesla's target market does not tolerate Nazism, which Elon Musk is clearly and obviously signaling.
That doesn't even touch on his enthusiastic role in an administration threatening EU members states, some of our historically closest allies in the past century, with military action. There are great Chinese EVs, even if Musk weren't behaving this way. Of course demand in the EU is cratering.
Teslas valuation is ridiculous, their reported earnings quality is lousy, and their sales comps are deteriorating.
hn_throwaway_99
This may get flagged as it's similar to previous articles that were flagged, but I'd just like to point out that ideological arguments pro or con about Tesla stories rarely seem to be the true reason. That is, whenever there is an article about Tesla sales slipping you see lots of "That's because all the liberal EV buyers hate Elon now!" comments. And as much as I may personally want that to be true, if you dig a teeny bit you nearly always find that economic reasons are much more plausible – e.g. as some other comments have pointed out, the rise of competition especially BYD, people holding off for the new model Y, difficulty in finding repairs, etc.
Lots of consumers like to talk a good political game but pocketbook issues always seem to take precedence when push comes to shove.
fiftyfifty
It's such a shame. My wife has an early Model 3 from 2019 that's now over 100,000 miles. It's been a great car, no major issues and no maintenance for 6 years. 100,000 miles with nothing but new tires and windshield washer fluid is amazing to me. We're not in a position to unload our Tesla for something else right now, but without major changes at the head of the company it will likely be the last Tesla we own.
ubermonkey
My neighbor — a very earnest, smart, progressive 27 year old working in alternative energy — bought one just before the election. His deposit went in sometime in the spring.
He was super excited about it at first, but the spring in his step is much reduced now. I feel bad for him.
I mean, true life, I think most people have pretty good experiences with Teslas. The brand was pretty resilient vs. Elon's shenanigans until fairly recently, but now, man, whatever goodwill he had he's busily taken a flame thrower to. We'll probably go EV or hybrid for our next car, and there's no way in hell we'd consider a Tesla AT ALL.
yalogin
I see this drop across Europe and Canada but the US is still alright. For some reason though, any negative news about Tesla doesn't reflect in the stock price. Wonder if the US market is propping it up, xAI nebulous or may be just musk's incessant tweeting.
bwanab
At least in the US, as long as the charging infrastructure is no better than it is, if you're planning on taking any long trips and you want to do it in an EV, I don't see any alternative to Tesla. And, yes, I know that other brands can now use designated Superchargers and maybe that's enough, but given how few those designations are I doubt it.
ChrisArchitect
Previously:
Tesla Sales Are Tanking in Europe
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42698077
xnx
Teslas are good cars, but I can understand not wanting to drive around in anything associated with the current CEO.
I think about data privacy too. Every automaker sells identifiable location data. I'd normally think of Tesla as being contrarian and possibly better on privacy, but they have a history of passing around photos/videos/audio from inside the cars(!).
I really wish that Apple hadn't killed their car effort. Even without self-driving, it could've been better in many other areas.
m_a_g
I see no reason for this to get flagged. Not every heated comment section deserves a flag, and no one is insulting each other. If it’s done by the mods, I think we deserve an explanation.