Tesla loses ground in Europe
Registrations in Germany fell from 63,685 passenger cars in 2023 to 37,574 in 2024. The brand's popularity has also declined, according to data from Statista, a leading German statistics portal.
New registrations of Tesla electric cars are declining in Germany. As the Statista chart shows with new data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, registrations fell from 63,685 passenger cars in 2023 to 37,574 passenger cars in 2024. This is a decline of 41%. At the same time, Tesla's share of all new battery electric vehicle (BEV) registrations fell to 9.9%, according to Statista calculations, down from 12.1% in 2023 and 14.9% in 2022.
On a global scale registrations in January 2025 were down by 45% compared to the same month of last year, while the total electric car market grew by 37%. And this is not a seasonal phenomenon as registrations fell in every quarter of 2024, while the overall market performed better.
According to media reports, Tesla is under particular pressure in Europe because overall demand for electric cars is shrinking. Only 1.4 million new electric cars were registered in the EU in 2024, almost 6% fewer than the previous year. However, Tesla's sales decline over the same period is much higher, as described above. Some of the problems may be home-made: The company’s product range was already considered relatively old last year. For the current year, the company has at least announced a revision of its bestseller Model Y.
In addition, Elon Musk's political activities could lead to a loss of image for Tesla. His support for Donald Trump and right-wing parties in Germany and the UK has been widely criticised. Some companies have already announced that they will remove Tesla’s from their fleet or no longer want to place advertisements on the X short message portal. For Germany this includes, but is not limited to, the energy supplier badenova, more than 60 universities, different departments of the government and the construction company Viebrockhaus.
Next to a decline in sales, the popularity is falling as well, albeit less drastic. While 19% of those surveyed by Statista who were familiar with the brand said they liked Tesla, this figure was two percentage points higher in the previous year's survey. According to the same report this places Tesla at the 10th spot in popularity, behind most German car manufactures and foreign ones like Ferrari, Ford and Skoda. Part of the ranking might be explained by electric cars not scoring too well in Germany overall.
About Statista
Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. Established in Germany in 2007, Statista operates in 8 locations worldwide and employs around 1,100 professionals.
Caption: Amount of registration of new automotives from Tesla in Germany in red and the respective market share of electric cars in black (Image: KBA, Statista-Calculation)
Source: Statista
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