Tesla’s year is not getting any better.
For the fourth consecutive month, sales in Europe have slumped for tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Austin-based auto company.
Tesla’s sales in Europe fell 49% in April from a year earlier, down to about 7,261 vehicles, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. New-car registrations for Tesla models across the European Union dipped almost 53% to 5,475 vehicles.
According to the data, Tesla’s European market share dropped to 0.7%, down from 1.3% a year ago.
Tesla’s dip in sales came as electric and plug-in hybrid cars saw an increase in sales.
Overall car sales in Europe dipped 0.3%. Battery-electric car sales, however, have risen over 26% between January and April compared to the same period last year, with registrations for hybrid-electric cars rising almost 21% and plug-in hybrid sales growing 7.8%.
A fourth month of dipping sales does not bode well for Tesla, which has received extensive backlash brought on by CEO Musk’s political viewpoints and role at the federal government cost cutting Department of Government Efficiency.
Tesla sees bleak 2025 as Musk receives political backlash
Tesla’s new-car registrations in the EU compared from the previous year slumped 36% in March, 47% in February and 50% in January.
Tesla is facing stiff competition from Chinese rivals as they are expanding aggressively across Europe, and the company isn’t seeing much enthusiasm for its new Model Y.
For the first time, Chinese automaker BYD sold more electric vehicles in Europe than Tesla last month, according to data from consumer-research group JATO Dynamics. ACEA data showed that Chinese state-owned automaker SAIC Motor outsold Tesla in Europe in April.
Tesla’s challenging 2025 even led Musk to refocus his attention on his companies.
In the first three months of 2025, Tesla’s profit fell 71%. In the first quarter earnings call for his auto company, Musk said that starting in May, “my time obligation to DOGE will drop significantly,” referring to being head of the federal government’s new Department of Government Efficiency.
Tesla isn’t the only one of Musk’s companies to have a rocky year though.
Tuesday marked his space company SpaceX’s ninth test flight of its Starship rocket, the third this year. And all three ended with the rocket demising before it could test land.
The seventh and eighth test flights in January and March respectively didn’t last longer than 10 minutes after liftoff with the upper-stage vehicle, Starship, exploding.
The ninth test flight on Tuesday made it into space before SpaceX lost control of Starship about halfway through its journey and broke apart as it fell back into the atmosphere. Debris fell into the Indian Ocean away from populated areas.
Over the weekend, Musk posted on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was spending more time at work and had to be “super focused” on Tesla and his other companies.
On Tuesday, Musk reiterated the sentiment to a reporter prior to Tuesday’s Starship launch, saying he spent “too much time on politics” this year and wants to rededicate his focus to work and not the federal government cost cutting arm.
Speculation circulated after the April Tesla earnings call that Tesla’s board was looking for a new CEO, which the board chair later denied.
“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company. This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead,” the board’s chair Robyn Denholm said in the statement.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Tesla’s monthly sales in Europe fall by nearly 50%, signaling backlash against Musk
Reporting by Austin American-Statesman / Austin American-Statesman
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
