The article states that T-Online, a German news outlet, polled 100,000 readers, with 94% rejecting Tesla and only 3% considering a purchase. While the sample size is unusually large for a survey, the methodology isn’t detailed in the article. Online reader polls, like those often conducted by news sites, are typically self-selecting—participants choose to respond rather than being randomly sampled. This introduces significant bias, as those motivated to participate may already hold strong opinions, especially given Musk’s polarizing public image. Without information on how the survey was conducted (e.g., random sampling, controls for bias), its scientific validity is questionable.
Yeah, if you just phone random people they'll probably say Tesla is bad. It's different to a while later when the news has faded and they are actually buying a car and comparing options.
It's also misleading to frame responses of "aren't considering buying a Tesla" as "won't buy a Tesla", because most of those respondents aren't considering buying any vehicle at all.
Sales number are not good in germany either, but I know Elon fans have an excuse for this too. Anyway is clear that even if this numbers are not correct Tesla's image is fcked, now buying a Tesla is giving money to a nazi and an enemy (on top of the other Elon's "qualities")
I know in EU Tesla sales are down compared to previous year while EV sales are up. We do not know for sure how much of this is Elon's comments and support of fascists and how much is other cars getting better, but if we wait more data will be available.
Because it wasn't an honest question. You have access to the same data sources as those who claim that Musk is at best Nazi-adjacent or Nazi-sympathetic. You have access to the same video (note video) of the salutes (note plural), access to the same news stories about Musk's support for far-right causes and organizations, and access to the same tweets in which Musk advocates policies, attitudes, and behaviors indistinguishable from those associated with 20th-century fascism.
Obviously you disagree, but instead of saying as much, ideally using the same data sources to refute your opponents' arguments, you engaged in low-effort sealioning. Hence the flag.
It seems clear by now that the Tesla brand has completely fallen out of favor with the progressive, high-earning, status-conscious demographic in Germany (their main buyer group). While there are tentative trends toward avoiding US products in general, I see little potential for this becoming widespread. Few people are actually boycotting Apple or Coca-Cola, and most continue to make a clear distinction between the American people and culture (which they consider close friends) versus the current US administration.
I wonder how this compares to markets like Canada or Denmark? Are other brands facing similar challenges in those countries as well?
Maybe not exactly the same thing, but obviously the arms industry is going to face some challenges because of the new American foreign policies.
Maybe they will be offset by general increase in arms production, but Europe has alternatives to most of the weapons they currently buy from USA (including strategic air defense). They just need to scale up production.
With more and more alternatives available, not sure why someone would in general buy a Tesla, at least here in Europe.
They are very expensive and apparently not high quality as one would be expecting for that price. Add all the political "things" happening in the last months and that VW, BMW etc are waking up and you'll get a high number of people not wanting to buy a Tesla anymore. Probably not 94% but I think it's pretty close.
My wife had to buy a car last year, wanted to buy electric and Tesla was the only one that was ready to deliver within a month and at a decent price per features.
Don't care about Elon but in the end all these corporations building the cars are on the same level of general disregard for the population or environment and just chasing profits. Doubt there is a real ethical choice when buying a car nowadays
Teslas have been very popular in the Netherlands, and by far the best selling cars (Model 3 as of 2019 [0], Model Y in 2023 [1] and 2024 [2]), but sales have been declining for a while now. Though I'm not under the impressions that this has anything to do with Musk's recent actions, in my observation it's just that other car options have become available.
Tesla became very popular because EVs were heavily subsidised and Tesla was the only good EV option for quite a few years. Other manufacturers either didn't have EVs, or they were very impractical, awkward and ugly.
European manufacturers eventually woke up and started introducing EVs, and although they are a common sight on the street now (BMW, VW and Porsche in particular) they are still rather expensive, so Tesla remained popular for a while.
But in recent year Korean (Kia, Hyundai) and Chinese (BYD, NIO, etc.) manufactured cars have matured a lot. Their designs have improved considerable to a point where my friends, who consider themselves hardcore car guys, actually like them. Now a new Kia or BYD (heck, even Hongqi) is becoming well accepted and seem on-par in social status as a Tesla.
So this is purely anecdotal, but in my social circles at least nobody seems to consider Musk's actions in choosing a new car, it's just that other options have become available.
"...a couple of Seig Heil..." -- that's not even a thing.
It's "Sieg Heil". I've yet to read German articles doing so many errors when using or quoting foreign languages.
Doesn't change the general quality of any article, but it bothers me, that English speaking journalists seem so outright ignorant when it comes basic proof reading -- names, locations, basic phrased,... often ridiculously botched.
94% comes from a non-representative online poll, but Tesla sales already about halved in 2024 and the first months of 2025 saw another halving to 70+% reduction YoY. So it's certainly quite bad.
But I also wonder, with germany being a very SUV-centric market, if this has something to do with the tesla SUVs (X and Y) just being uniquely butt-ugly. If you have working eyes, there are just so many options which look much nicer these days, and unlike ten years ago there is no big performance gap.
It has to do with other companies catching up and surpassing Tesla. Tesla's are a bad deal nowadays because of build quality and the company slashing prices(which kills resale value). Has tesla refreshed their lineup yet?
Plus the whole CEO is a psycho nazi thing.
edit: yeah, there's an article over on the verge talking aout how used tesla prices are plummeting because everyone wants to ditch their teslas. It's probably a decent time to buy a cheap tesla.
It is ridiculous that it took politics and a trade war to get people to finally stop buying overpriced windows update control-grid pedestrian-mowers that take anywhere between 30 minutes and 12 hours to re-fuel. People are so hooked on their status symbols. He could have made underwear that randomly tazes your balls, and if he charged enough for it, and sold it in cute & seamless packaging, people would buy it!
That's kind of the point of status symbols, isn't it? I have tattoos on my face, but still make more than your doctor. I bought an imported car that's in the shop half the time, but that's just an opportunity to drive one of my other imported cars. I wear underwear that zaps my jimmies every now and again, but... you get the picture.
Now electric car transition there is done, too: they won't buy Teslas, but Chinese electric cars are banned, and European one are incredibly expensive, lose money to their makers, and just plain suck. All hope is for "european" cars made by Chinese brands that are "reassembled" (sometimes by doing as little as bolting the wheels on) from "kits" coming from China. Like Volvo. They are actually decent and may be better than Teslas.
The Volkswagen range (ID.3, ID.4, the ID.Buzz van) is excellent. Of all the EVs I've driven, the ID.3 is my favorite, far superior to a Tesla. I've driven rented EVs from Skoda, Opel, SEAT, Peugeot, etc., and they're all fine, if boring. If you count any brand available in Europe, Hyundai and Kia both have excellent EVs, including the Kia EV6 and EV9.
Tesla have definitely nailed certain things that other manufacturers have struggled with. They're the only manufacturer that does a good UI (but like many others I deeply dislike that everything is on a poorly positioned screen), and their integration is excellent (things like automatic navigation to a supercharger when it knows it will need to charge to get to your destination).
Tesla have also strived for more practical ranges; I find it really frustrating when other manufacturers launch new cars with 300-350km ranges, which is a step backwards.
> European one are incredibly expensive, lose money to their makers, and just plain suck
Not true by any means. There are multiple options available and new cars are being planned / released all the time. Not to mention the second-hand market has ample choice.
Tesla was given favorable tariffs terms by the European commission, even fro vehicles made in China, but who know how long that will last with Musk insulting them daily.
Tesla is/was the largest importer of Chinese-made cars into Europe. That's why the EU tariffs are decided brand by brand (to spare Tesla and BMW mostly)
And also chinese cars that are put together in european factories are not loaded with tariffs, so they are starting to do that. I think Leapmotor in a Fiat factory in Poland is first?
Volvo is designed/engineered in Sweden and has a global production network with factories in Sweden, Belgium, the US, and China. You're massively oversimplifying.
We bought our first electric car last summer, we got an VW ID.3 and... we like it a lot. The pricing was pretty good, not much more expensive than a comparable VW combustion car. Apparently the infotainment system was quite bad/slow in older generations, but they fixed that in one of the upgrades and the on in ours is fast and works well.
European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers haven’t achieved the economies of scale drive down EV prices, but they are getting better quickly.
Tesla meanwhile has been stagnant for a while, which means people who wanted that that kind of car likely already bought one and don’t see much reason to buy a new one. The poor publicity from Elon isn’t helping but they peaked in 2023 even as total EV sales grew substantially in 2024.
And right after that, the fight against climate change will be lost.
Electric cars could have been the enabling technology for intermittent renewable power generation. Smart charging and back-feeding into the grid when needed could have largely solved the intermittency problem.
It is not. Only 18% of newly registered cars are electric i.e. over 80% of the people are still buying new CE cars, to say nothing about the massive used car market which is almost completely CE.
Musk's rightward lurch will be good for the electric car transition. His ideological opponents are just switching to other EV vendors. His ideological friends would normally not have considered buying an electric car, because anthropogenic climate change is a socialist hoax or something, but Trump is instructing them to buy Teslas as a sign of solidarity.
https://www.adac.de/news/neuzulassungen-kba/
Even if you don't understand German there is graph showing how many Tesla cars were bought/registered in Feb 2025.
Very difficult to measure, but I wouldn't minimize it.
Obviously you disagree, but instead of saying as much, ideally using the same data sources to refute your opponents' arguments, you engaged in low-effort sealioning. Hence the flag.
Maybe they will be offset by general increase in arms production, but Europe has alternatives to most of the weapons they currently buy from USA (including strategic air defense). They just need to scale up production.
https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-rules-out-buying-f-...
They are very expensive and apparently not high quality as one would be expecting for that price. Add all the political "things" happening in the last months and that VW, BMW etc are waking up and you'll get a high number of people not wanting to buy a Tesla anymore. Probably not 94% but I think it's pretty close.
My wife had to buy a car last year, wanted to buy electric and Tesla was the only one that was ready to deliver within a month and at a decent price per features.
Don't care about Elon but in the end all these corporations building the cars are on the same level of general disregard for the population or environment and just chasing profits. Doubt there is a real ethical choice when buying a car nowadays
https://www.carwow.de/ratgeber/elektroauto/lieferzeiten-elek...
If you can't wait 2-6 months, I agree Tesla is not a bad option.
Tesla became very popular because EVs were heavily subsidised and Tesla was the only good EV option for quite a few years. Other manufacturers either didn't have EVs, or they were very impractical, awkward and ugly.
European manufacturers eventually woke up and started introducing EVs, and although they are a common sight on the street now (BMW, VW and Porsche in particular) they are still rather expensive, so Tesla remained popular for a while.
But in recent year Korean (Kia, Hyundai) and Chinese (BYD, NIO, etc.) manufactured cars have matured a lot. Their designs have improved considerable to a point where my friends, who consider themselves hardcore car guys, actually like them. Now a new Kia or BYD (heck, even Hongqi) is becoming well accepted and seem on-par in social status as a Tesla.
So this is purely anecdotal, but in my social circles at least nobody seems to consider Musk's actions in choosing a new car, it's just that other options have become available.
[0] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2019/ [1] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2023/ [2] https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/2024/
It's "Sieg Heil". I've yet to read German articles doing so many errors when using or quoting foreign languages.
Doesn't change the general quality of any article, but it bothers me, that English speaking journalists seem so outright ignorant when it comes basic proof reading -- names, locations, basic phrased,... often ridiculously botched.
But I also wonder, with germany being a very SUV-centric market, if this has something to do with the tesla SUVs (X and Y) just being uniquely butt-ugly. If you have working eyes, there are just so many options which look much nicer these days, and unlike ten years ago there is no big performance gap.
Plus the whole CEO is a psycho nazi thing.
edit: yeah, there's an article over on the verge talking aout how used tesla prices are plummeting because everyone wants to ditch their teslas. It's probably a decent time to buy a cheap tesla.
That's kind of the point of status symbols, isn't it? I have tattoos on my face, but still make more than your doctor. I bought an imported car that's in the shop half the time, but that's just an opportunity to drive one of my other imported cars. I wear underwear that zaps my jimmies every now and again, but... you get the picture.
The Volkswagen range (ID.3, ID.4, the ID.Buzz van) is excellent. Of all the EVs I've driven, the ID.3 is my favorite, far superior to a Tesla. I've driven rented EVs from Skoda, Opel, SEAT, Peugeot, etc., and they're all fine, if boring. If you count any brand available in Europe, Hyundai and Kia both have excellent EVs, including the Kia EV6 and EV9.
Tesla have definitely nailed certain things that other manufacturers have struggled with. They're the only manufacturer that does a good UI (but like many others I deeply dislike that everything is on a poorly positioned screen), and their integration is excellent (things like automatic navigation to a supercharger when it knows it will need to charge to get to your destination).
Tesla have also strived for more practical ranges; I find it really frustrating when other manufacturers launch new cars with 300-350km ranges, which is a step backwards.
https://www.adac.de/news/neuzulassungen-kba/
(This link is not dated, so contents will change in the future, the archive.org link is not up to February yet)
Top 10 electric cars (again February 2025):
1. VW ID.7
2. VW ID.4, ID.5
3. VW ID.3
4. Skoda Enyaq
5. Audi Q4
6. Seat Born
7. Tesla Model Y
8. BMW 4ER
9. BMW X1
10. Seat Tavascan
So the top 6 are all Volkswagen. And in total 7 of the top 10.
Not true by any means. There are multiple options available and new cars are being planned / released all the time. Not to mention the second-hand market has ample choice.
EV is on a decline in general after the end of government subsidies
And Germany is still dominated by local brands. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/germany/2024-full-year-ger...
We couldn't be more happy with the purchase.
Tesla meanwhile has been stagnant for a while, which means people who wanted that that kind of car likely already bought one and don’t see much reason to buy a new one. The poor publicity from Elon isn’t helping but they peaked in 2023 even as total EV sales grew substantially in 2024.
And right after that, the fight against climate change will be lost.
Electric cars could have been the enabling technology for intermittent renewable power generation. Smart charging and back-feeding into the grid when needed could have largely solved the intermittency problem.
It is not. Only 18% of newly registered cars are electric i.e. over 80% of the people are still buying new CE cars, to say nothing about the massive used car market which is almost completely CE.
Or maybe I am the one getting it backwards…
Nice 2019 talking point, bud.