By Bernard Condon
NEW YORK (AP) – Europeans haven’t bought Teslas on Wednesday, marking the fifth consecutive month of sales in May. The blow to investors who wanted anger towards Elon Musk would have been waning by now.
According to the European Association of Auto Manufacturers, Tesla’s sales fell 28% in 30 countries despite a sharp expansion in the overall electric vehicle market. The poor show comes after Tesla’s billionaire CEO promised last month that a “massive rebound” would come, adding to the recent buying frenzy among investors.
They were on sale on Wednesday, lowering prices by more than 4% early in the afternoon.
Musk said Tesla will definitely get a boost after the company was able to revamp its factory and produce a new version of its biggest seller. Investors are now hoping that cheaper Tesla is expected to compete in the end of the year will help reverse the decline in sales.
Overall, battery electric vehicle sales rose 25% in Europe compared to a year ago. The EVS market was particularly strong in Germany. There, Musk angered potential buyers by publicly helping the German party replace far-right anti-immigrants in the election. Overall EV sales jumped 45%.
China’s SAIC motor was a big winner of the month with European sales, where European EVS and other types of cars jumped 38%. This allowed the company to jump over and over Tesla. Tesla had sold more cars in the area a year ago.
SAIC sold 18,716 vehicles last month against Tesla’s 8,729.
Tesla’s decline in sales is coming at a critical time for the company as it begins a test run of its unmanned “Robotaxis” services in Austin, Texas. Musk says if he’s well, he hopes to quickly introduce services to several other cities in a row and have as many as 1 million automatic cabs on the roads by the end of the year.
Although most of the reviews have been good up to now, service is limited to just a dozen cars, with some passengers distributing the video in question during the ride.
Federal road safety regulators said they were looking into the video on Tuesday.
Original issue: June 27, 2025, 7:16pm EDT
