While Elon Musk made waves as a disruptive force tearing through U.S. government agencies for the past few months, his company Tesla was forced to navigate rough seas. In response to Musk’s prominent role in the Trump administration, people protested outside of Tesla showrooms, got rid of their cars or simply stopped buying them in the first place, as was very visible in European registration figures. It seems that many people no longer want to be associated with Tesla and its divisive CEO, leaving the brand – once a symbol of forward thinking and a progressive lifestyle – reeling.
The latest registration figures published by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association suggest that Europeans are turning their backs on Tesla quickly, as new registrations of Tesla cars plummeted in the first quarter against the market trend. According to the figures, Tesla sold 54,000 vehicles across the EU plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland and the United Kingdom, down 37 percent from the first quarter of 2024. At the same time, new registrations of electric cars surged 28 percent in Q1, meaning that the Tesla slump cannot be explained by broader market dynamics.
Looking further at 2024 registrations suggests that Tesla has been falling behind in the European market for a while, as its aging fleet is competing with an ever-growing selection of electric vehicles from legacy car makers and upcoming Chinese brands. Tesla has underperformed the European BEV market in terms of growth in four of the past five quarters, seeing its market share drop from 18.2 percent in 2023 to 16.6 percent in 2024 and just 9.4 percent in Q1 2025. How much of that trend is caused by growing competition and the lack of new Tesla models and how much can be attributed to Musk’s increasingly divisive persona is unclear, but the combination of all three factors is not a winning recipe for the former EV frontrunner.
