“I’ve defended you guys a lot over time, and also you make nice merchandise, however even I can’t stick up for you anymore,” she said.
Róbertsdóttir, now a software program developer for Icelandic air visitors management firm Isavia, began her tech profession as founding father of Iowa-based Celadon Purposes. This 2009 startup developed software program for electrical autos. An extended-time Tesla stockholder, considered one of her resolutions was put to the vote at Tesla’s annual shareholder assembly in 2023, calling on Tesla’s board to launch a succession plan for Musk and different “key individuals” whose habits may create a danger for the corporate and shareholders.
“When individuals have a look at this firm,” she mentioned on the assembly, “they see the corporate as a synonym for its CEO.” (The board advisable rejecting the decision, and it was duly voted down.)
Whereas some shareholders have already voted with their toes—in January, Dutch civil service pension fund ABP offered its €782 million stake in Tesla, as an illustration—most nonetheless appear unbothered by Musk’s trolling, or his obvious takeover of the US authorities’s govt department with the assistance of younger coders. Musk’s “pedo man” feedback towards a British cave rescue diver, efficiently defended in a 2019 defamation trial, didn’t ruffle that many shareholder feathers, nevertheless it’s more durable to disregard gross sales cull calls.
In late January, Poland’s sports activities and tourism minister Sławomir Nitras lobbied for a Tesla boycott. “There isn’t a justification for any cheap Pole to proceed buying Teslas,” he mentioned.
In Germany, the place Musk has brought on outrage by endorsing far-right political social gathering Various for Germany (AfD), going as far as to look as a shock video visitor on the social gathering’s nationwide election marketing campaign launch final month, a number of corporations have lower ties with Tesla. Drugstore chain Rossmann, with 4,700 shops throughout Europe, has changed Tesla in its electrical fleet with different EV manufacturers, citing the “incompatibility” of its company values and Musk’s ideology.
German vitality firm LichtBlick revealed an uncoupling from Tesla on a LinkedIn submit. “We’re pulling the plug on Tesla autos in our fleet,” mentioned the announcement, with the agency’s actual property head, Kevin Lütje, clarifying that “Elon Musk’s help of Donald Trump and his advice to vote for a right-wing populist and right-wing extremist social gathering … is on no account appropriate with LichtBlick’s values.” He said that “local weather safety and electromobility are extraordinarily essential to us, however within the future we will probably be counting on suppliers apart from Tesla.”
Such boycotts profit Tesla’s rivals. “Now we have seen a rise in individuals writing to us and switching to Polestar in latest months,” Polestar’s German CEO Michael Lohscheller tells WIRED. Lohscheller known as Musk’s endorsement of AfD “completely unacceptable.”
There are lots of causes for Tesla’s waning fortunes in Europe—together with stale mannequin line-up (Geely’s Gothenburg-developed Zeekr 7X SUV has extra bells and whistles than a Mannequin Y) and expense (a Mannequin 3 prices €39,990 in Europe, whereas many higher EVs are biting into this worth level)—however Musk’s regular descent from real-life Tony Stark to MAGA energy dealer appears to be a key motive for Tesla’s present precipitous fall from grace.
Tesla gross sales dropped 13 % throughout the entire European Union in 2024, in accordance with information from the business physique ACEA, and similar to in Spain and France, in lots of key markets the autumn continues to be steeper. Based on the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, Tesla registered just one,277 new automobiles in Germany in January, a year-on-year drop of 59.5 %.
Tesla was contacted for this piece and didn’t reply, however there appears to be no gentle on the finish of the tunnel for Tesla gross sales in Europe. A latest survey by Dutch information outlet EenVandaag bought responses from 432 Tesla drivers. Some “31 % are both considering promoting their automotive or have already performed so,” the survey discovered. Forty % of homeowners felt embarrassed to personal a Tesla. By any measure, these are statistics that no automotive firm desires to personal.
