Don’t Blame Musk for Tesla’s Plummeting Sales in France, Germany
Aside from the Cybertruck, the company hasn’t had a new mass market model since 2019 when it first unveiled its popular Model Y.
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Normally France and Germany only align on where you can get the best spaetzle (it’s Strasbourg).
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Tesla had experienced a 59% sales drop in Germany according to national vehicle registration data, and on Tuesday it reported that next door in France it had seen an even bigger drop of 63%. Now those figures might have you thinking sacré bleu, and maybe even questioning whether CEO Elon Musk’s political profile might have something to do with the sudden sales drop, but actually the answer lies in a far more foundational part of Tesla’s business — and even comes with a silver lining for the EV-maker.
Something Old, Something Leased, Something New
Tesla is the world’s biggest automaker by market capitalization, but it does not have the freshest lineup. Aside from the Cybertruck, the company hasn’t had a new mass market model since 2019 when it first unveiled its popular Model Y.
That’s all supposed to change this year as the company is now selling its updated version of the Model Y, the Model Y “Juniper.” The vehicle went on sale in China first, and has only just arrived ready for purchase in Europe and the US. Felipe Muñoz, senior analyst at automotive market research firm JATO Dynamics, told The Daily Upside that a sales dip before a new model is a very predictable (and minor) bump in the road for a very popular car:
- “The Model Y is a hot-selling vehicle, the fourth top-seller in Europe in 2024,” Muñoz said. That’s not the fourth most-popular EV — it ranked fourth amongst all vehicles sold in Europe, per JATO’s data.
- “Consumers just want to wait to get the latest version, and Tesla has also limited the deliveries of the old one,” Muñoz added. The Juniper version of the Model Y only went into production in Tesla’s Germany plant in mid-January, according to German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Firebrand: Exactly to what degree Musk’s ever-expanding political profile might be damaging the Tesla brand is still up for debate. A report from research and consulting firm Brand Finance found it contributed to a 26% drop in the firm’s brand value — though it also found Tesla’s aging lineup to be a major factor. Until the sales data for the Juniper are out, we won’t know just how ardently Europeans feel about Musk. Federal employees, on the other hand, have a pretty strong consensus about him already.
