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Tesla sales decline in Europe for fifth straight month as rivals gain ground

2025-06-258:0459114www.timeslive.co.za

Tesla's new car sales in Europe fell 27.9% in May from a year earlier as fully-electric vehicle sales in the region jumped 27.2%, with the US EV maker's revised Model Y yet to show signs of reviving…

Tesla's new car sales in Europe fell 27.9% in May from a year earlier as fully-electric vehicle sales in the region jumped 27.2%, with the US EV maker's revised Model Y yet to show signs of reviving the brand's fortunes.

Overall car sales in Europe rose 1.9%, with the strongest growth coming from plug-in hybrids and cars powered by alternative fuels, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (Acea) showed.

Tesla's European sales have fallen for five straight months as customers switch to cheaper Chinese EVs and, in some cases, protest against CEO Elon Musk's politics.

Tesla's European market share dropped to 1.2% in May from 1.8% a year ago.

The revised Model Y is meant to revamp the company's ageing model range as traditional automakers and Chinese rivals launch EVs at a rapid pace amid trade tensions.

May new car sales in the EU, Britain and the European Free Trade Association rose to 1.11-million vehicles after a 0.3% dip in April, Acea data showed.

Registrations at Chinese state-owned SAIC Motor and Germany's BMW rose 22.5% and 5.6% respectively, while they fell 23% at Japan's Mazda.

In the EU alone, total car sales have fallen 0.6% so far this year.

That comes despite growing demand for EVs, with registrations of battery-electric (BEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and hybrid-electric (HEV) cars rising 26.1%, 15% and 19.8% respectively.

EU sales of BEVs, HEVs and PHEVs combined accounted for 58.9% of passenger car registrations in May, up from 48.9% in May 2024.

Among the largest EU markets, new car sales in Spain and Germany rose 18.6% and 1.2% respectively, while in France and Italy they dropped by 12.3% and 0.1%.

In Britain, registrations were up 1.6%.


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Comments

  • By adlpz 2025-06-258:102 reply

    That's called voting with your wallet.

    • By scarab92 2025-06-261:401 reply

      Tesla are attempting to maintain their pricing and margins while the cost of producing EVs is plummeting.

      The result is that they are being severely undercut on price by BYD et al.

      Tesla are going to have to either start cutting prices significantly, or accept being a low volume pseudo-premium offering.

      • By spwa4 2025-06-2617:30

        Hey now, give some credit to the spectacular decisions by the Tesla CEO. That's what set it off, after all.

    • By petesergeant 2025-06-258:122 reply

      Perhaps, but there’s also just many good alternatives now.

      • By quonn 2025-06-258:165 reply

        I'll believe it when I see, say, a someone in a VW (or similar) driving across Europe without having to think about chargers, broken stations and cables, fiddling with different payment system card and having a screen that actually works safely (as opposed to long lags and not showing the required information).

        The software is a terrible mess for most brands and the charging infrastructure as well. Tesla's competition still costs about 25-50% more. It will take at least another 5 years or longer for someone to catch up.

        • By mattlondon 2025-06-258:351 reply

          FWIW I have a VW ID3. The specs in terms of range etc are largely the same as a similarly priced Mopel 3 standard range. Here is a comparison: https://ev-database.org/uk/side-by-side?i=2210,3186&h=a018a3... they're basically neck-and-neck apart from 0.60 times etc where tesla is slightly faster and better efficiency, but the VW gets slightly better range & bigger battery so it balances out. Both charge at max 175KW

          At least in the UK, I've never had a problem with charging stations of payment yet - there are lots of stations (some now are "plug and charge" so you just plug and the payment is dealt with automatically, but those are currently rare but the rest pretty much all take contactless payments) and many now that are 350KW (which is way more than either my ID3 or the Tesla 3 can handle). Pretty much everyone now has settled on CCS as the "usb for cars" in Europe so that are no cable/adaptor issues to worry about.

          The software on the ID.3 is ok. If you sit there for 20 minutes and fiddle with it yes it is not as smooth as using a modern smart-phone in terms of responsiveness. But really, 99% of the time all I am doing with it is changing the radio station or aircon for which it is totally fine. I've not used a tesla so cannot do a direct comparison.

          • By quonn 2025-06-2510:362 reply

            > I have a VW ID3.

            I have an ID4 so I can compare both.

            > I've not used a tesla so cannot do a direct comparison.

            That's all I need to know.

            • By rurp 2025-06-2515:56

              Well I've driven Tesla's many times as two of my immediate family members own one and I find the software absolutely terrible, it's the worst UX of any vehicle I've ever driven. The move to hide basic functionality, often safety related, in menus and non-standard places is terrible. On top of that they change the interfaces without warning and move things around. I've seen even the vehicle owners get stumped on how to do basic things like adjust the steering wheel position or set the windshield wipers correctly in the rain. Even Tesla's own online documentation was wrong the one time I went there after I was unable to figure out how to make a basic adjustment.

              That company really loves form over functionality and mistakes gimmicks for features.

            • By prmoustache 2025-06-2512:31

              I've seen people doing trip comparisons with Tesla, Peugeot, VW, BMW and chinese EV crossing France between various cities.

              All in all experience and complete trip time was more or less equal on all of them except for those who choose to use the cheapest charging network which host all its charging stations outside of highways.

              Non-Tesla EV can charge on Tesla charging stations in EU [2] and Tesla charging stations are often located in unfriendly places with no commodities available such as toilets and take away food so very often non-Tesla networks offer a better experience.

              All in all on lpng trips the choice of the vehicle doesn't seem to make a major difference past a minimal viable range. It is more about the charging network you choose to stick with and the potential app gymnastic you might be doing if you aren't sticking to one in particular. And the Tesla network doesn't seem to have in Europe the superiority it might have in th USA.

        • By ben_w 2025-06-258:431 reply

          > Tesla's competition still costs about 25-50% more.

          You sure about that? From what I've seen, each of Tesla's models have a competitor of similar category and range that's order-of €5k cheaper.

          Even with that aside, there's also the issue that Tesla doesn't have a broad range of vehicles, and there's now a lot of other competitors filling all the various niches, which means if all you want is a cheap electric city car you can get that for €17k* and don't need to start with the, what is it, €42k for a Model 3?

          * For a Dacia Spring: https://www.dacia.de/nci-catalog.html?model.code=S1E&sortKey...

          There is also the much cheaper Citroën Ami for just under €8k, but that's more of a car-shaped object, legally a quadricycle, but even then the point remains that it's filling in niches that Tesla doesn't: https://www.citroen.de/modelle/neuer-ami.html

          • By dzhiurgis 2025-06-259:442 reply

            Chinese cars in NZ cost about 5k USD less than Tesla, but you also generally get less car - slightly smaller, slightly worse specs and of course average software.

            Weird exemption is Korean cars that cost far more. Go figure that out.

            I agree Tesla's narrow range of options is probably THE issue. Like it or not, a lot of people's car buying is irrational. Flash looks, unrealistic range, tons of custom options, old habits (Korean EVs still ship a fricking engine start button). Tesla is the most rational car purchase out there (average looks, tons of features, tons of automation, mass produced so parts a dirt cheap). Most of rational buyers already got one.

            • By rsynnott 2025-06-2510:30

              > Weird exemption is Korean cars that cost far more. Go figure that out.

              This might be an NZ trade policy thing; in Europe, Hyundai has electric cars susbstantially cheaper than the cheapest Tesla.

            • By ethbr1 2025-06-2521:07

              > Like it or not, a lot of people's car buying is irrational.

              Oh, I'm reminded, every time I see a Cybertruck on the road.

        • By tossandthrow 2025-06-258:191 reply

          I don't think people see the software as an intrinsic feature of getting from a to b - yet.

          Charging infrastructure really depends. In the northern country the alternatives are great and even Tesla owners would likely use alternative charging infrastructure - unless they want to take detours to get to Tesla charging points.

          • By quonn 2025-06-258:22

            There are very rarely any detours worth mentioning on highways anymore. I can confidently say this, because I regularly take trips across Europe, crossing 5 countries per trip (~3000 kms).

        • By gniv 2025-06-258:211 reply

          We're talking about Europe here. The choices are there. Around here (greater Paris) I see a lot of Chinese brands (BYD, MG, Volvo) and domestics too (VW, Renault).

          Edit: I meant to reply to u/petesergeant above.

          • By quonn 2025-06-258:241 reply

            > The choices are there.

            I have test-driven BYD, Volvo, VW and Tesla and extensively driving VW, Tesla and Volvo. Of course you see different brands, but it doesn't mean they are as good right now.

            • By sundaeofshock 2025-06-2511:49

              My response to your assertion that Tesla is the best EV on the market is “so what”. The other brands may not be ”the best”, but buyers have decided they are good enough for their specific needs and that is all that matters.

        • By jaggs 2025-06-2510:50

          Yeah, clearly you either don't have an EV or have never driven across Europe in one. I have several times over the past 8 years and there's absolutely no problem with infrastructure or performance. And my car is old. Newer models are ordered of magnitude better in terms of charging speed, functions etc.

      • By kmac_ 2025-06-258:284 reply

        European alternatives are expensive, and half of Chinese no-name brands will disappear next decade (good luck servicing such a car). Regarding Chinese brands, they are crash tested by C-NCAP, not Euro NCAP, and somehow every model gets 5 stars. No, thank you.

        • By moogly 2025-06-2722:05

          > Regarding Chinese brands, they are crash tested by C-NCAP, not Euro NCAP

          Untrue. https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/latest-safety-ra...

        • By rsynnott 2025-06-2510:27

          > European alternatives are expensive

          Just looking at a sampling of Irish prices across the low end (including grants):

          Tesla Model 3: min 37,500eur

          VW id.3 (European): min 31,780eur

          Dacia Spring (European/Chinese): 17,000eur

          Hyundai Inster (Korean): 20,000eur

          Like, certainly in terms of minimum entry price, Telsa's very much on the expensive end.

        • By tossandthrow 2025-06-258:353 reply

          What no name brands?

          BYD is as old as Tesla (2003) and XPeng is more than 10 years old at this point.

          • By kmac_ 2025-06-258:491 reply

            BYD is actually well established. But there are dozens of Chinese car brands right now on the European market, simply, there's too much competition, many of them will leave.

            • By tossandthrow 2025-06-259:321 reply

              Do you care to name just a few of those dozens?

              Bringing a car on the market is quite regulated, so if you don't have adequate capital, it is really difficult to bring a new car to market in the EU.

              • By kmac_ 2025-06-2511:092 reply

                Sure, two dozens, sorted by most popular. Half of them will be gone:

                MG, BYD, ORA, Haval, Omoda, Lynk & Co, NIO, Xpeng, Zeekr, Maxus, Leapmotor, Hongqi, Aiways, Chery, Jaecoo, BAIC, Forthing, DFSK, Seres, Voyah, SWM, JAC, Bestune, Skywell

          • By danaris 2025-06-2513:12

            To many Americans, Chinese brands don't count as "name brands". They're the knock-off generics that you get if you don't value the status that a "real" name brand gives you.

          • By debian3 2025-06-259:15

            The two biggest is BYD and Geely. Pretty much the Toyota/Honda of China.

        • By dzhiurgis 2025-06-259:40

          This.

          Koreans have far too many issues and Japanese are just making fun of themselves (albeit new Leaf finally might be decent).

  • By GardenLetter27 2025-06-258:193 reply

    The EU needs to end the tariffs on Chinese EVs.

    It's funny they say climate change is a critical emergency (with several countries making measures to effectively ban AC), but then stick to stuff like that.

    • By pjmlp 2025-06-258:393 reply

      Stopping wars and AI everything would do much more for the planet than dealing with paper straws.

      Yet here we are, with no end in sight for them, while I have to feel guilty to prefer something that doesn't destroy itself after a few seconds in contact with liquids, or to take the car, because transport network only favours those that already live in the city.

      • By ZeroGravitas 2025-06-2511:371 reply

        The plastic straw bans were about the structural rigidity and non biodegradable nature of the item causing trouble for animals when discarded.

        Similar to the can ring holders that got banned previously for similar reasons.

        It's telling that critics of the move needs to invent other reasons for it to fail at.

        • By pjmlp 2025-06-2516:481 reply

          It is a fun exercise to seat at the beach and see everyone busy splitting caps from bottles.

          Sometimes it is better to improve education than draconian measures.

          • By ben_w 2025-06-2518:282 reply

            I remain fascinated how many people (not just you) describe something as minor as a materials or structure requirement of a minor sub-item of one of several different ways in which drinks are prepackaged into individual potions, with terms such as "draconic".

            It's not like people get the death penalty for littering, which would fit the etymology of the term.

            Still, language drifts.

            • By pjmlp 2025-06-2614:19

              Because this is throwing sand into people eyes, as we say back in Portugal.

              Easy measures to assert governments are doing something.

              Actually changing habits of whole populations, or doing real work changes the country infrastructure, access to transport for everyone, and green fuels and whatever, cost too much money, and possible votes, so what really matters isn't done, only the easy stuff, to assert something is being done.

            • By fragmede 2025-06-2518:471 reply

              It's so fascinating when people so misunderstand human psychology that something that interferes with the point of a product (ie, drinking the liquid inside of the bottle) is seen as minor, relative to the use of the product.

              Still, importance is relative.

              • By ben_w 2025-06-2519:00

                None of these changes have interfered with my ability to drink directly from the bottle.

                Perhaps my mouth is unusally shaped?

      • By msgodel 2025-06-2518:50

        Letting people waste water for cooling is the problem, not AI. If you attack adjacent things you'll get a lot of interesting internet arguments but you probably won't solve the actual issue you care about.

      • By GardenLetter27 2025-06-259:142 reply

        Why AI? AI is a big productivity booster, better to just generate more nuclear and renewable power, and then use AI to improve things more (same argument for AC).

        Energy usage doesn't have to correspond to environmental damage much at all.

        This degrowth mindset is the whole problem with the EU. They focus on scarcity and cutbacks and regulation and bans, rather than addressing the underlying issues to spur on growth and innovation.

        • By rurp 2025-06-2516:50

          > Energy usage doesn't have to correspond to environmental damage much at all.

          Come on now, green energy is less bad than fossil fuels, often by a lot, but that's very different from having no impact. The mining to support solar panels does real measurable harm, as does disposing of old ones. There are similar environmental costs to every green energy source. I think nuclear is one of the least bad options and we should have been making more of it for decades, but it's hardly devoid of externalities.

          That's not to say we need to consume less energy, just that we should be clear eyed about the tradeoffs. So far there's very little evidence of a huge productivity boost from generative AI, especially relative to the immense energy consumption. Things are changing quickly, maybe that will improve in the near future. But if utility levels off where it is now and energy consumption increases another one or two orders of magnitude, and we're still keeping coal plants alive to support it, I'm going to be pretty skeptical it's worth the cost.

        • By pjmlp 2025-06-259:221 reply

          Because of the water cooling and all forms of producing energy that it entails.

          It is like loving the planet eating soja, while ignoring the forests being destroyed to satisfy demand as planting fields.

          Or farmable fields now being solar panel fields, because it is more profitable to sell energy, than living the farmer life, earning pennies for a hard work life, while kids die every day of lack of nutrition.

          To fix the planet, first we need to get rid of profit driven societies.

          • By froddd 2025-06-2510:38

            Soya is a bad analogy here. When forests are being destroyed to grow soya, it isn’t primarily soy to feed humans, but to feed cattle/stock to then feed humans. This is an order of magnitude more destructive.

            Edit: fully agree with the sentiment, getting rid of the profit-driven mindset would be beneficial to all.

    • By mrtksn 2025-06-2515:11

      Agree completely, protectionism when your manufacturers still have the resources to compete is just postponing their end and reducing their chances to get a feel on the market and actually build a competitive product.

      However, on the climate change thing I'm convinced that for EU its's just a happy coincidence that they don't have oil in any considerable amount and are using it to propel for energy independence through renewables.

    • By ZeroGravitas 2025-06-2511:57

      The majority of EV imports from China to EU have been Teslas in recent years!

      The percentage has been falling but it was still about a quarter of imported Chinese made EVs being Tesla in 2023. And a chunk more is European brands like Dacia and BMW.

      Projected to be majority Chinese brands from this year though.

  • By mattlondon 2025-06-258:175 reply

    Regardless of the politics, the new look for the Model Y is awful in my opinion.

    They took something that was quite tidily styled and classy (IMHO) looking, and have made it into this weird horizontal slit thing that looks cheap and nasty, and feels at odds with the rest of the car's shape and massing. A real mess of a facelift I think - no one would willing pick that if they cared about what it looks like.

    • By V__ 2025-06-258:25

      Elon probably can't accept that his Cybertruck design sucks, so he is slowly forcing the design language onto other models.

    • By Fade_Dance 2025-06-258:26

      I suppose looks are subjective. I think the facelift is appealing, and from what I've seen online the general reaction has been pretty good in comment sections.

      Most importantly, it differentiates the model y from the model 3. Before the facelift the y sort of looked like a bloated model 3 with the exact same design language.

    • By Gareth321 2025-06-2510:35

      I guess it has been polarising but I have to be honest: I quite like it. Of course it's not Porsche or Audi styling, but I think it's clean and understated and quite functional. Some of the negative sentiment appears to draw parallels with Chinese brands. Perhaps that's true, but I don't dislike BYD styling.

    • By quonn 2025-06-258:32

      I like the new look of the Y.

      I dislike the new look of the Model 3, though, which looked kind of cute and from the front somewhat like a Porsche and now looks sort of aggressive with the thin lights.

    • By dzhiurgis 2025-06-259:39

      they look good irl and pretty poor in photos.

      regardless - you do realize tesla isn't about the looks, but user convenience? No car comes close it's integration.

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