Elon Musk’s European crisis deepens—initial April sales numbers prove devastating for Tesla

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Elon Musk’s European crisis deepens—initial April sales numbers prove devastating for Tesla

Four key EV friendly European markets reported high double-digit drops in

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volumes in April with only Norway showing some improvement. So far there has been little sign that the newer Model Y is rekindling interest in Elon Musk’s brand on the continent.

Europe, the world’s second largest market for electric vehicles after China, appears to be closed for business to Elon Musk’s Tesla.

The 

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 may regret returning to the automaker’s headquarters in Austin this month, as the first batch of national markets published car sales figures that show the brand remains in freefall on the continent.

Whether it’s France or Sweden, the Netherlands or Switzerland, registrations of new Tesla vehicles—which lag retail sales slightly—continued to plummet at high double-digit rates. Now their sales numbers are dwindling so much they risk becoming meaningless compared to the United States or China.

Tesla investors have been hoping its historically weak first quarter was an anomaly due to a changeover from the older version of the Model Y 

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 to the newer one complete with some 

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 to the front and rear.

In advance of the “Juniper” derivative’s March launch, all four of Tesla’s factories shut down their Model Y assembly line for retooling in February, greatly reducing availability and contributing to last week’s

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.

The midsize crossover has been the best-selling car of any kind worldwide for two years straight and accounts for about two-thirds of the brand’s volume, so any changeover was bound to distort monthly sales figures.

But Tesla’s European business appears to be in full-blown meltdown. In

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, its volume sank 59% to 863 cars for the month.

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, where there is a

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between Tesla and the local IF Metall trade union, saw its sales plummet 81% to just 203 vehicles in an otherwise growing market.

In the

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, Tesla sold just 382 cars in April, a 74% dropoff.

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was also a disaster—down 50% to 227 cars.

All these markets are relatively wealthy, have a sizeable EV public charging network and enjoy a penetration rate for EVs far higher than Spain, Italy or most of Eastern Europe. In other words, they tend to be where conditions for Tesla are most favorable.

Instead the lone bright spot was 

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, where volumes grew 12% to 976 cars.

To put that into perspective, the grand total 19,771 new Tesla vehicles registered across all five markets for the first four months of this year is roughly the equivalent of two weeks of sales in China.

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It’s important to note these figures could still be affected by a slow production ramp and limited availability of the Model Y Juniper. Moreover, a number of car markets have yet to publish their figures. Chief among them are Germany and the ***, respectively the largest and second-largest in Europe.

But for a CEO who has been in the news constantly for all the wrong reasons—whether

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, allegedly failing to pay child support for some of his 14 children, or

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for attempts to limit President Donald Trump’s power—the risk remains that he’s inflicted permanent damage on Tesla.

Musk’s political activism in Europe has gone down poorly with local customers. The Tesla CEO has intervened primarily on behalf of white nationalists like English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson in the ***—someone so far to the right even Trump ally Nigel Farage

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.

In Germany, the picture is little different. Elon Musk

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the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the recent election, a party that on Friday was ruled a

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in its entirety and no longer just its fringe elements.

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