Tesla sales crash in Europe, UK. We can only wonder why Registration of new Tesla cars slumped across Europe in January, as Chinese electric-vehicle makers racked up enormous growth. Germany's Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt vehicle authority reported Wednesday that sales of Musk's EV brand dropped by nearly 60 percent in January compared to the same period last year. The French automotive …
These are sales that happened before Musk showed the world he's a proud Nazi, and before he started on a mission of destruction in the US government (not that Europeans necessarily care about that to the same extent we do in the US, but his antics in Germany show he'd happily destroy the EU in the same way if you let him in)
I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla's EU sales have another 75% to fall during 2025.
Not to pop your signal balloon, but…..
Volkswagen is the car company started by the *actual* Nazi party. Multiple EU-based firms are still in successful existence whose past is beyond “sketchy”. Shall we call out Agfa (as in IG Farben, slave labour and Zyklon B for gas chambers), AEG (slave labour), Chanel (an actual Nazi spy), all the German banks, Dr Oetker….
It’s not an exaggeration to say that most large modern German, French and Belgian firms were literally built on their collaboration with the Nazis, would not exist without them, participated fully in the Holocaust, used their connections to be the last man standing , and quite simply *the Nazi military-industrial complex won WW2*. Simple as that. The history books may say the “Germans lost the war”, but the Nazi companies certainly did not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust
No, I won’t be buying a Tesla. But your pretence that any of the EU competitors holds the moral high ground is grotesque and offensive.
Disappointed you didn't add a photo of Musk illustrating how high sales will be when (if) FSD gets approved in Europe.
I suppose Space Karen might be viewed as a latter day Porche.
In any case I can believe many Europeans are not overjoyed at the prospect of owning a swasTi car or at least wouldn't give a fylfot.
I believe it's a similar situation in AU where Tesla is losing market share to other marques especially to those offering plug-in hybrids although EVs are still a small proportion of all auto sales.
Yet, over at the Tesla forums, the cult members are still talking about their 10 year lead in EV tech.
ORLY?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle
I guess the Elon simps haven't discovered google yet?
IMO it's useful to seperate the EV drivetrain side of Tesla from the car manufacturing side - the former is something I've always had a lot of respect for, to the point where I'd love to see them simply abandon any pretence of trying to be a car manufacturer at all and simply focus on the stuff they DO do well by becoming a drivetrain supplier to the rest of the world.
Their ability to come up with decent packaging for their drivetrains however is something I've almost never been impressed with - of their present range of cars, the only one I'd even consider having sat on my driveway is a Model S, because that's the only one that IMO comes anywhere close to providing the *complete* package and matching what you'd get from even a mid-spec European car these days, let alone one with a comparable pricetag to the S.
So no, I don't have any difficulty in understanding why some Tesla owners/fans/supporters would still be suggesting they're still the leader in EV tech, *if* you take them literally and assume they're referring just to those things where Tesla is still ahead of the competition. If however they're just claiming that Tesla remains in the lead in terms of EVs generally - i.e. the complete package point above - then that's where I'd struggle to believe them.
Their ability to come up with decent packaging for their drivetrains however is something I've almost never been impressed with - of their present range of cars, the only one I'd even consider having sat on my driveway is a Model S, because that's the only one that IMO comes anywhere close to providing the *complete* package and matching what you'd get from even a mid-spec European car these days, let alone one with a comparable pricetag to the S.
As someone said, a Tesla is not a £50k car. It's a £25k car wrapped round a £25k battery. BMW price tag, Ford budget for the "car" bits.
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We should give credit where it's due: to the engineers for their hard work, but also to Musk for his nous, conviction and even his ability to ensure cheap finance for the company. But, as others have been saying for years: where's the next version? The Chinese have been working on all aspects of the chain for years and now lead in most of the technology. And now they have by far the largest domestic market which will help work on fit-and-finish, routing and automatic driving.
That said, I think battery-driven cars are a dead-end due to the limits both of the chemistry and the means of delivery: charging networks. Electric drive trains are almost certainly the future for most of us, I suspect they're likely to be powered by hydrocarbons either as turbines or fuel cells for a while yet.
"powered by hydrocarbons either as turbines or fuel cells for a while yet."
Why turbines????????
They have a very poor efficiency. Which is why almost every power station that runs gas turbines uses a combined cycle where the waste heat from the turbine is used to raise steam to run a steam turbine. Not the easiest thing to incorporate into a car.
Though I think in the 1950s there was some turbine car project in the US but that didn't go anywhere.
What inspired you to mention turbines?
My understanding is that turbines have greater efficiency than ICEs – but it doesn't really matter, something that relies on oxidising hydrocarbons to generate power – the important thing is separating power generation from the drive train. This allows for modular systems and, therefore, potentially greater improvements of their various components.
Turbine powered cars are not a new thing, they've been around since the 50s. I've wondered about a turbine-electric hybrid, with electric at the low end and then combined generation and propulsion when in highway mode. Seems like a good match of power and efficiency.
Ultimately, most conventional base load generation is turbine powered.
+1 for turbine-electric hybrids
The turbine cars of the 50s used mechanical gearing to go from high RPM (100k+) to wheel speed and it was stupid. Gyroscopic loads and supersonic surface interactions caused bearings and gears to fail. But there have been significant advances in microturbines, high speed bearings and high speed low-inertia electric generators since, and an all-electric (series) powertrain means that the turbine runs at its optimal speed, and has no gears to wear out.
They are much lighter per kW than ICEs and have a similar if not better overall efficiency. It would solve a lot of problems with the 'range extended EV' concept.
Their edge has always been, and remains, the charger network, and the fact that it only needs plugging in, no app/card/anything.
Other networks are now much better, still not quite as good, and other manufacturers have the ability to just "just plug in" charging on various networks.
Even without Xitler's stupidity at the helm, the cars appeared to be attracting the same stereotype as Audis (and before that, BMW's) did - that of being driven by a total wanker.
Whether the stereotype is accurate or not outside of his weird fanbase is another matter - and before anyone starts, I run a Skoda. :P
There was an article the other day that someone in the UK drove their brand new Tesla around 100 miles and the front suspension collapsed, due to a manufacturing fault. This caused lots of other damage to the vehicle but the owner is landed with a £10k bill as Tesla more or less say "tough shit". Doesn't inspire anyone to buy a Tesla.
That sounds like a perfect example of selling something that is not fit for purpose, and the owner of the Tesla should be taking the Tesla dealership to court under breach of the UK Consumer Rights Act.
I can almost guarantee that as soon as the court papers land on the dealers desk they will be on the phone offering a free repair or replacement within minutes because there is no way that the court wouldn't find in the car owners favour for a car that cost £50k going tits up after less than 100 miles of use.
>There was an article the other day that someone in the UK drove their brand new Tesla around 100 miles and the front suspension collapsed, due to a manufacturing fault. This caused lots of other damage to the vehicle but the owner is landed with a £10k bill as Tesla more or less say "tough shit". Doesn't inspire anyone to buy a Tesla.
Oh please. I know its fashionable with a certain type of idiot to spend all day posting anti Musk/Trump bilge. But claiming Teslas are unreliable is dumb, even for this place.
In 2023 Whatcar rated the Model 3 8 out of 15 EVs for reliability
"Owners told us 26% of their Model 3s had a glitch, with bodywork and non-motor electrics the most common causes for concern"
"Common problems included faulty sensors, malfunctioning infotainment systems, and build quality concerns such as panel gaps and paint defects"
Yeah, there's been the bricking car wash issue, and the stuck accelerator pedal saga, the flunky frunk affair, the windshield wipers and trunk bed sail applique fluke, the faulty hood lock misery, the backup camera glitch epic, and the faulty drive inverter MOSFETs story. So, yeah, quite reliable ...
And so in related News, this afternoon, the French President announced free weelhairs for all who need them, including electric ones (not made by Tesla), on TikTok (not on X/Twitter).
So there is one report of someone being told that they'd damaged something in the UK.
That report is years old, and seemingly has no followup anywhere, just a couple of repostings. Of course no news outlet would be interested in "consumer protection law works" article, so I'm not surprised to see that there is no discussion of the insurance claim vs tesla (which the insurance company would inevitably win unless there was some definitive evidence that the car had been abused).
"T not just for Tesla, Tosser is in the running."
Maybe, there should be a new slang name for TESLA cars so they are now called TOSSLA ?
And here's hoping that Elon's empire falls flat on it's face and he can be consigned to history as a total knob !
Answers for common decency and taste combined with the practical and safety aspect of them removing the gear stick, windscreen wiper and indicator stalks...
They should be banned for not having windscreen wipers and indicator stalks. When are the DVSA going to grow some balls and stop this dangerous stupidity.
Just remember, if they are 6" off your back bumper, you need to be doing a speed where that is a safe stopping distance. Something slightly below a slow walking pace, factoring in reaction times.
The teachers at school used to say, "If you run, you won't get there any quicker". That never made any sense, but if you drive right up my arse, you certainly won't be getting to where you're going any faster.
Oh grief, those Range Rovers, not a drop of mud in sight (although that does work to keep them out of our village, that'd be far too close to, you know, actual farms and countryside).
And talking of "close", don't they realise that if they don't back off from our rear window, we can't see and marvel at their vanity number plates?
One model did have a tendency to incinerate it's occupants but the beancounters decided that it was cheaper to pay out a few damages than to fix the petrol tank, and that folks is why it can't be "left to the marketplace" to control such things.
Mind you, we are now in a position where a 5* euro safety rating for a car can only be achieved by installing a "keep in lane" system that will try to kill cyclists when you pass them and which re-enables itself on every restart. Good grief!
Be nice. They have a nice new truck... which has taken the title 'Ugliest Motor Vehicle In History' away from the Citroen 2CV. The French thought that they had retired the trophy, despite a strong showing from the Pontiac Aztek (yes, spelled with a 'k'.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek
It's big, it's ugly, it's stainless steel and yet rusts... give it some love. God knows that it ain't getting sales.
And... there ain't no 'neo' about the Musketeer. He just needs to gain some weight to be the perfect stand-in for Dicke Hermann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6ring
Exit, stage right, to the Horst Wessel Lied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied
Multiple decades ago, doctor in a small village in Warwickshire had a land rover(*) and a 2CV for home visits(**)
The land rover went through the snow. The 2CV went over the snow when it got too deep for the land rover.
Alas, he is long gone and we don't have snow any more.
(*) A proper one.
(**) Doctors used to come out to your house if you were very ill in those days.
I had one, and it was one of the best cars I ever had. I still miss it. Citroën worked on it in secret throughout WW2 and as a result it was superbly designed and engineered, particularly for maintenance. The only exception to this is setting the points gap, which is a faff and requires the fan to be removed, but otherwise keeping one going is ludicrously easy.
Let me! Let me!
Saw one at a car show in ODESSA.
There's a button there to toggle Auto Pilot. It's marked AuSchwitz.
Engage the Auto Pilot and it takes you to Himmelfahrtstrasse.
And there was a kid who didn't look before crossing the street and the Tesla nearly Hitler Youth.
And if the car won't work in the snow they offer Winterhilfe.
In the Netherlands and Belgium the car is marketed under the brand Rommel.
Musk ordered a special Paul von Hindenburg edition but it crashed and burned.
Ok, I must get back to work now. Arbeit macht frei, and all that.
Read the comments to this video in the voices of Clarkson, May, and Hammond.
Since Elmo's started really strutting around and proudly doing the salute I have started to see more and more debadged Teslas. They're still obviously Teslas, but selling your (now) used car and buying a new one is fairly expensive, and this way at least now your Swasticar no longer has Elmo's mark of the beast on it.
Of course there's still the 'I Bought This Before We Knew He Was a White Nationalist Fascist Psychopath' bumper sticker, but debadging seems like a next level of hate (without actually selling it)?
Haven't seen that with any of the Sports Futility Vehicles, because anyone who owns one is, by definition, proudly a complete arsehole and tosser.
>Of course there's still the 'I Bought This Before We Knew He Was a White Nationalist Fascist Psychopath' bumper sticker, but debadging seems like a next level of hate (without actually selling it)?
It's a matter of time before it becomes fashionable for them to be rebadged with spray cans
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GB number plates include a two digit year (or year+50) so there is already an indication of how blatant Musk had become when the vehicle was purchased.
Second hand Teslas are tricky because getting Tesla to switch control to a different phone is not straightforward. For cybertrucks it gets more silly. A bunch of people ordered cybertrucks early with the intent of selling them at a profit to people who did not get an early place in the queue. When it became public knowledge that the trucks were crap and rusted easily Tesla changed the rules at prevented resale within a year.
Musk: "We dug our own grave with the Cybertruck". Apparently the FSD option to fill in graves requires the owner to be in the vehicle not the grave. A great opportunity missed.
No, they are completely impossible to certify in both the UK and EU. The cited reason is, as you say, pedestrian safety; the sharp edges are a violation of EU design regulations which the UK has not diverged from since leaving. You can own one, but it's not road legal so you would have to keep it on private property at all times; it's not even legal to have one parked on the street.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz0lldd30xlo
Somebody was driving one round in the UK last month, until the police stopped them and confiscated it. Apparently it was "registered and insured abroad". UK law can be hot on driving without valid insurance, so it would be nice to know what this outcome of this is.
The insurance wasn't valid in the UK - that is the principal reason the Police stopped it. As it is not road legal in the UK, it will not be possible to get it insured for UK roads. The standard penalty for no insurance in the UK is a short visit to Mr Crusher ;)
That, and anyone who got their driver's licence in the last 29 (ish) years in the UK can't drive anything heavier than 3.5 Tonnes (including passengers and load) unless they've passed an additional test for a C1 licence. So, in the unlikely event that the cybertruck is redesigned for pedestrian safety, a lot of people won't be licenced to drive one carrying anything more than 3 average weight passengers plus some hand luggage.
"That, and anyone who got their driver's licence in the last 29 (ish) years in the UK"
Now I feel old again....
I passed my car test (first time!) in 1982. So I have all the add-on stuff like C1 and D1 (plus a few qualifications that I can't find the reason for..). Bike test passed in 1993 (again first time - I'd been riding motor bikes since I was 16.)
I feel even older. Will be 60 in a week or so. Some days I feel my age and those are the *good* days. Sadly, riding bikes is now well beyond my joints' capabilities :-(
Ha! Passed my bike test in 1968 and got my car licence in 1969. No accidents since then and just 3 points for a dodgy tyre some time in the 1970s.
Just back from my regular eye test where I was told that the minimum requirement to drive is to be able to read the top line of the test but I could read the very bottom line, so hopefully no problems when I have to renew my driving licence again in June when I turn 73.
Certainly hope so, as a week later I'm booked to take a 700bhp supercharged Dodge Hellcat round Brands Hatch for a few laps!
Since Elmo's started really strutting around and proudly doing the salute I have started to see more and more debadged Teslas. They're still obviously Teslas, but selling your (now) used car and buying a new one is fairly expensive, and this way at least now your Swasticar no longer has Elmo's mark of the beast on it.
Oh.. dear. Seems like TDS is making El Reg go full Godwin. Of course if you want a true 'Wankpanzer', might I suggest buying one of these, from the venerable Porsche-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefant
A lot of Porsche (and Volkswagen) designs were a tad more rugged, and some German automakers even had electric drives back in the '40s. But history doesn't stop people buying those brands today. People who buy, or want to buy Porsches are probably just a bit more mature than a lot of El Reg commenters. Also kinda funny how far and how fast El Reg has fallen, from being a fine scurilous rag to a woke mess, just as businesses are realising that stuff is, well, bad for business.
But on a more serious note. People aren't buying Teslas because they have more choice. Some TDS addled potential owners might opt not to buy what was once the darling of the left, others might just compare EVs and want a more traditional looking car than Tesla's minimalist design. Easy clean, wipe down furniture might be fine for a fast-food diner, others might want something more comfortable and semi-luxurious, especially at the prices Tesla wants to charge. They may also prefer traditional controls, rather than everything-via-iPad.. And then there's all the other boring things, like availability for servicing etc.
Godwin's Law has a corollary that states it does not apply if making a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis is relevant to the discussion. Given the massive overlap between what Hitler did after taking power and what Trump and President Musk are doing now, the comparison is both relevant and valid.
It's Jeel, one of the resident RWNJs, the comparison is of course relevant, and the same corollary applies to him (and the other one, you know who, no don't say his name, he'll rock up in the comments and start a massive rage-chevron going on about how brilliant Brexit is again, and then the comment you were actually interested in will be knocked onto page 7).
It's Jeel, one of the resident RWNJs, the comparison is of course relevant..
Not really. Or if it is relevant, then it's also relevant to point out that LWNJs keep seeing Hitler everywhere and perhaps need their medications checking.
and then the comment you were actually interested in will be knocked onto page 7).
Indeed, because the hitler yoof will have been going 'haha.. he did a naughty with his hands' for 6 pages. So.. errm.. I offered some suggestions why people might be buying EVs other than Tesla. Do you have any rational thoughts on that subject, or will you just continue to throw virtual poop at the screen and demonstrate to the world what a serious soul you are?
If that is your opinion then isn't it time for you to move to a more pro Trumpinan site... line Twatter?
This place is (in)famous for slagging off everyone and anything. Long may that continue.
I'm waiting for (f)elon to sue the site for being a wee bit nasty towards him. After all he sued a group for simply researching him. Thankfully, that was dismissed.
Ob Firesign Theater reference (taken from memory (such as it is...) so exact wording may be off):
George Leroy Tirebiter: [...] What do I hear?
Heckler: That's metaphysically absurd, man! How do I know what you hear?
JLT: I didn't hear that!
Person in crowd: I'll give you $5
JLT: I heard that!
> >Since Elmo's started really strutting around and proudly doing the salute I have started to see more and more debadged Teslas.
> No you haven't.
I saw two more today. Do you think they were low flying UFOs? False flag Fiats? Elmo personally trolling me? This is so typical redpill lalalala fingers in my ears eyes closed I see THE TRUTH because the truth is in my heaaaaaaad it's the universe that's wroooong.
So, just to to smack a Nazi in the face further, there are now a LOT of debadged Teslas around here with Elmo re-tweeing 'HITLER DID NOTHING WRONG!' posts every god damn week.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/03/13/musk-retweets-hitler-didnt-murder-millions-message-amid-ongoing-nazi-controversy/
Just admit you're a f#$ing Nazi and that Elmo is one or that you were wrong about this. It is real.
Once upon a time Tesla had a monopoly on larger, longer range EVs.
Now they don’t and other manufacturers products are (for various reasons, aesthetic, technical, political, and other) looking like a more attractive choice than Tesla’s (rather stale looking these days) offerings.
MuskCo wouldn’t be the first high profile company to come to grief through taking their customer base for granted and if they do fall by the wayside it seems unlikely that they’d be the last…
Film at 11…
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Depends what size and how much performance you’re looking for really…
Even though it’s been around a while the Polestar 2 would be high on my personal shopping list if I was looking to replace my current Leaf E+, if you want something bigger and faster but can’t run to a Porsche Taycan then Hyundai’s Ioniq 5N or the Kia EV6GT are strong contenders.
The Ford Mustang E doesn’t suck either…
The new Renault 5 starts at around £23k. Not the perfect car, but it looks nice. The only major neg is that you wouldn't want to put adults on the backseats* for any long duration journeys due to there not being a huge amount of leg-room.
*Once again, I find myself compelled to note that this is not a euphemism!
And none of the problems of one you buy direct from Tesla
https://www.instructables.com/Tesla-Cybertruck-DIY-Made-of-Paper-/
Oh shit! Is that what I did when I was drunk last night?
Apropos of nothing, does anybody want to buy a secondhand Cybertruck? One careful owner, never been in the rain, mint condition.
Dave Gorman claims to have bought a hot air balloon on eBay, at 2am, while drunk. Oops. Bit awkward when the courier tries to drop that in your wheelie-bin and run away.
I bought a 2014 Model S second-hand from Tesla in 2017. Tesla looked after me very well over the years, and the car has been great.
Now that it is coming to the end of its life, I was thinking of replacing it with a Model 3 in a year or two. But that idea started to look a bit poor when Musk started supporting Trump, and now with his recent behaviour it's completely off the board. I do still think that Tesla cars are the best in the market, but the competition are getting closer to them, so it won't be too much of a blow to buy something else. Maybe something Korean or Chinese, I'll have a closer look into the options later.
So, yeah. This previously happy Tesla owner has been lost to the brand directly and specifically because of Musk. Just one data point, of course.
GJC
As I suspect that an 11 year old, 150,000 miles Model S might be a bit difficult to sell on the second-hand market now, I think I'll probably dismantle it for the 16 battery packs, and convert them into storage for the house. It'll be nice to still have use out of the money we spent on the car.
GJC
The Octopus tariff we're on gets you 7p/kWh for all usage 23:30-05:30, you just need to own an EV to be eligible for it. We run everything in the house on electricity already, with heating and hot water both run from storage systems that heat themselves up overnight on the cheap juice.
In fact, that's going to be the limitation on any battery system here - we already bang up hard against the 80A capacity of the incoming fuse, often for hours at a time overnight, so I need to tread carefully.
GJC
The Octopus tariff we're on gets you 7p/kWh for all usage 23:30-05:30, you just need to own an EV to be eligible for it. We run everything in the house on electricity already, with heating and hot water both run from storage systems that heat themselves up overnight on the cheap juice.
Scottish Power offer a similar deal, and I've been curious how legal that might be. Or how easy it might be to sign up for that deal with a 'virtual EV'. Or why homes that have already been decarbonised are penalised for electricity, and EV owners are subsidised by the other electricity customers. But it could be worse*.
In fact, that's going to be the limitation on any battery system here - we already bang up hard against the 80A capacity of the incoming fuse, often for hours at a time overnight, so I need to tread carefully.
Yep, but such is the creaking distribution network. Just order another supply/phase and it'll be fine. Or not, if there's no capacity to do that. Or just order 3-phase so you can get fast(er) charging, and the express shock and dismay after being told you either can't do that, or see the quote. Virtue signalling often crashes hard into the realities of engineering and economics. Which is also where caution is needed, ie regs saying EVs should be on a seperate supply meter. That enables 'exciting new tariffs', like eVED, or 'demand management' so when you jump in the car ready to head to work, it's dead. Or it's dead because the 'smart' meters just aren't that smart.
https://register.lowcarboncontracts.uk/?search=hydrogen
The first round of 'Green' hydrogen CfDs. Kinda curious why two out of the three are 'owned' by Scottishpower Energy Retail Limited and not one of Scottish Power's wholesale/supply tentacles. But reassuringly more expensive than the £34/MWh for plain'ol CH4, even though CH4 err.. contains 4x the hydrogen. In theory, the costs for this boondoggle will only be added to gas customers bills, but I rather suspect electricity users will be forced to subsidise it as well. And Scottish Power already knows how it'll shuffle subsidies and ROCs away from it's retail business to maintain the illusion of wafer thin margins on that.
You do need to be a little careful. Tesla treat the battery pack as a single FRU, so any failure tends to give a fairly sizeable bill, whereas there are lots of third parties that will drop the pack, open it up, repair what needs repairing, and put it back.
I had the battery management module replaced in my pack last year. Even paying a third party to do the work, it was only a hair over £1,000 - I could have done it myself, dropping the pack out is easy enough so long as you have access to a two-post lift (which I do).
Anyway, we'll see. If I do decide to sell it, it should go well enough, as it's an early model with free Supercharging, which are quite sought-after.
GJC
I do still think that Tesla cars are the best in the market,
I've never been in the market for an electric car but from what I've seen about the place Polestar seem to offer a similar or better level of vehicle - their price may be slightly higher though than some Tesla models.
Otherwise EVs are becoming a commodity, and as long as you stay away from the cheap Chinese crap which we're importing now then you may well find things have moved on in the market and I'm sure you could do without the plastic-y trim, poorly fitted body panels, paint issues, and repairability issues found in Teslas.
Polestar would probably be my second choice, certainly. But Tesla have better software, and the Supercharger network. Some of those are now open to other makes (something around 50% of sites in the UK, from memory), but the Tesla vehicles know all about them right in the SatNav, and the integration is superb.
GJC
Owning/driving a Tesla really does reflect badly on the person in the driving seat. We recently had a managed printer company rep arrive in a Tesla, and it was commented on before he'd even got through the door.
The reality is really going to start striking as business leases are up for renewal over the next few years. You'd have to be mad to renew a Telsa lease (especially for anyone in a customer-facing sales role).
No ordinary person wants to buy an electric car. Their huge, heavy batteries make them an engineering nonsense.
Meanwhile, people cannot buy the petrol cars they want because the makers cannot sell enough electric cars to meet government rules on the ratio of petrol to electric.
It is time we had some real democracy, with the government responding to what people actually want.
Is that "expensive to run" bit not offset just a tad by the whole "half the cost to buy" thing? The extra £25k you spend on a battery could buy an awful lot of petrol. Roughy 200,000 mile sin any reasonable modern IC car.
Years ago a chap I new bought a Tesla Roadster and took me for a drive in it. Very impressive performance, though spectacularly shoddy build, flimsy design and awful ride. But I digress. He spent most of the trip berating me for wasting money on diesel. That my old Golf had cost me £1k and his new shiny had cost him £100k completely passed him by.
3 years ago, Tesla had a product which was far ahead of the competition. Better charging network, much faster charging speeds, higher efficiency so that charge goes further, infotainment which will deal with charge stop planning, etc.
Many of these advantages are still strong points, but they're not the night and day differences they once were. I don't think there is anything *better* than a model 3 at the price point, but there are definitely alternatives which you could sensibly consider given
- One might question why you want to give musk money
- Tesla service centres have gone downhill massively as a result of a Musk kneejerk to cut costs. Many service centres are a 30 day wait for an appointment, vs Musk promises to reduce service delays to "next day" with "most parts in stock"
- Erratic decisions like firing the whole supercharging team
Comments that the build quality is poor doesn't reflect the experience I see on Tesla forums.
Interestingly, BYD have chosen to price competitively in many European markets, but they're not really priced competitive in the UK market, and the products aren't particularly compelling without being cheap
(Disclosure, bought a model 3 in April 22)
Comments that the build quality is poor doesn't reflect the experience I see on Tesla forums.
The last place I would go to find unbiased, unedited, uncensored information about the reliability of a product is its own manufacturer's website, or forums. This applies to any product, but when the company in question is owned by someone who clearly has only a passing familiarity with the concept of truth, it's even more cut-and-dried.
Exactly how long do you think any comment saying anything slightly negative about an Elonmobile would last on the Tesla forums? Why don't you post something to that effect and find out?
I'm speaking specifically about Tesla Motor Club and Tesla Owner UK
They're a *great* place to go if you want information on common faults and levels of service people are receiving. Tesla owners are generally pretty open about the long delays for service appointments. There is even a long thread on suing Tesla for the Full Self Drive upgrades sold in 2020 as "coming spring".
I don't believe Tesla have a Tesla owned and moderated forum
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders site linked to in the article reports that 1,458 Teslas were sold in the UK in January, compared to 1,614 BYD vehicles. You say that BYD aren't competitively priced and aren't particularly compelling, but they still outsold Tesla.
The SMMT website also reports that 29,634 battery-electric vehicles were sold in the UK in January, so Tesla had 5% of UK sales in their specialist market segment. That's lower than I was expecting, to be honest. The poor customer service you report from their service centres may be a factor.
Just had a look at the BYD Dolphin on their website as being about the same size as my current car.
"The continuous LED headlight running across the centre grille and the dynamic taillight design reveal a sense of avant-garde style and technology." - is it avant garde to have the front of your car resemble a kitchen fluorescent tube strip light?
Electric car buyers tend to be the typical woke lefties, I bet the cat women and lightly bearded twinks are moaning now, seeing their former hero joined the dark side.
What mr. Musk should do is to yank out all the electrical crap from those cars, the design is ok, and start installing 6.2L LS engines to create a ride that every car enthusiast would love.
It would be a great start of the campaign "Drill baby, drill !" that president Trump wishes to embark on.
The reason WHY Tesla as a startup managed to bring a completely new car to market is that, compared to a conventional car, an electric car is easy. (The safety architecture required to manage the battery is not, but this does not prevent the car from driving).
Tesla put together a decent drivetrain, and solved the range issue by simply using a LOT of laptop-size cells. After all these years, they have not managed to figure out how to make the (relatively simple) bodywork, and you suggest that they should go for an IC engine solution (The truly complex bit)? No chance.
"they have not managed to figure out how to make the (relatively simple) bodywork"
Well, as Tesla have found, doing quality bodywork is not simple, it involves considerable design and manufacturing skills that even Tesla's near bottomless R&D fund hasn't cracked. Not only is the untrained human eye especially good at spotting (say) a non-parallel panel gap, when you're designing the car you need to allow for the considerable flex of the structure so that adjacent panels can't rub together, don't have stresses that pop the welds. ICE car makers have for years insisted that powertrain was their core skill, and yet it never was - it was design, comfort, NVH control, structure, finish, interior functionality and ergonomics, brand, service, logistics and parts, and a whole load more up to an including model replacement cycles. Tesla believed that story about drivetrain, and thought everything else just happened.
Car chassis provided from Lotus (design was based on Elise but not identical to it). Rest of gubbins installed and finished in some industrial units (Wikipedia says "facility" but that's a more dignified name than deserved) on a business park not far from Lotus's Hethel site.
does a car with a 6.2LS engine go four times as fast as my (admittedly not my favourite car) 1.3 litre Renault?
The biggest engine I've ever had was a 3.3L V6 in a Chrysler Grand Voyager. Accellerated pretty quickly up to about 30mph then the inefficiencies of a US-built/designed engine and terrible gearbox caught up with it and the accelleration rate fell off a cliff.
Unlike my (current) Toyota C-HR - the 1.8L petrol and the electric motor give it a pretty impressive performance and it corners *very* well - all those batteries low down give it some nice stability. But then I'm generally very quick in anything I drive (got stopped by a copper once late at night who was convinced I'd "done something" to the 1.3L engine in the Peugeot I was driving. I hadn't - I just knew how to conserve my momentum to make up for the fact that it accellerated in the same way as our Morris Minor does..).
And yes, the Grand Voyager did emit a *lot* more smoke. I was lucky to get 20mpg out of it and that was driving it slowly and carefully [1]. If I pushed it, it was more like 10mpg. Luckily, it was when petrol was not extortionate and it had a *big* petrol tank.
[1] Admittedly, didn't happen much.
I live in France.
If I wished to buy a Tesla (spoiler : I don't), apparently I have to go near Strasbourg to get it.
That's a 2-hour drive, which someone else has to do because I'm supposed to come back with my car. So that's two people saddled with four hours of their life just shuttling to and back from a given point.
Then, there's the fact that there are absolutely zero Tesla garages. There's nowhere I near me I can bring the car if I find a problem. If the problem is serious enough, that means that I have to pay to get the car transported back to Strasbourg.
Are you kidding me ?
Not to mention the price of replacing the batteries when they're worn out.
Not to mention that, if ever the car gets into an accident, there's a fair chance that the insurance inspector will declare that it is totalled, and I've lost everything. Insurance be damned, they won't buy me a new one.
Meanwhile, Toyota does great hybrid cars, and there's BYD that has an impressive lineup - and dealerships across France which also do repairs.
I'm very happy that Tesla has had such a success, but when I pay over €50K for a car, I prefer to be able to get it within 30 minutes, and have it serviced within 30 minutes.
My Audi works fine because my garage is 30 minutes away and they have the parts required and the expertise to handle it.
And the battery only costs €120 to replace.
That's kind of important at a time when we all appear to being going to war with China, which is the only country making batteries at this point.
I will be in the market for an EV when my (10 year old) car dies and this is going to be my last ever ICE car - I'm definitely buying an EV.
I wouldn't touch a Tesla because of Musk.
I have solar panels and a battery setup that I build and extend myself.
I wouldn't touch a TeslaWall because of Musk.
I live rurally, and my cell service is bad and my DSL is very basic.
I wouldn't touch a Starlink because of Musk (not often I cheer on Bezos, but come on Kuiper!).
That's not changed in all the time I've ever known who Musk was, years before that Thai cave debacle.
I don't know why anyone would want to do business with a corporation who have elevated THAT PARTICULAR GUY to some kind of worshipped-god (because he bankrolls many failing businesses) status.
Even now - he's literally destroying his own and his company's reputations in real-time and the boards of them all are doing nothing about it. Just keep sucking up to him. He's about to tank their sales, and the stats are showing just that, and they still continue. Where's the shareholder's revolt? Where's the denouncement? Nowhere. So I won't do business with those people, any of them.
Until you fix the Musk problem, you can sing for your money. I will literally avoid anything to do with him.
Must be the heartfelt greetings but there are other reasons:
- China taxes, Tesla complained about earlier
- In Germany Tesla's Model Y last year was only ranked 5th place for new EV, with Skoda on top of the EV list. So even before the heartfelt greetings the performance was dull. Now selling Tesla is like selling Ford to jews.
It is clear nobody has been paying attention to the industry. If you check SMMT (Society of Motor Manurfactures and Traders) Tesla sales have been going down for over 18 months. This is part due to EV sales going down and Tesla quality and reliability is at the bottom of the JD Power (USA) and Which (UK) car surveys. Only Range Rover is worse. Also their products are getting old and consumers need updates and improvements. Tesla have sat on their laurels for too long. They stopped selling the Model S and Model X in Europe over 2 years ago. Also the Ev products are getting better from existing car builders and the Far East. Tesla have just updated the Y model so I suspect their sales will improve the next six months.
Tesla have just updated the Y model so I suspect their sales will improve the next six months.
Tesla have also updated their CEO to full-on openly raving Nazi, complete with the classic "Roman" salute* so I'd expect their sales to decline in the next six months. Care to place a bet?
*This one always makes me laugh, like the word fascism doesn't come from the Romans to start with. The lack of awareness of history (and etymology) of those doomed to repeat it is breathtaking.
like the word fascism doesn't come from the Romans to start with
Err.. it very much comes from Latin - the lictors (mostly-ceremonial guards for senior officials, especially magistrates) had a bundle of sticks with an axe in the centre called fasces that were used to portray the authority of the magistrate (the habit dated from the days of the Roman kings and carried on under the Republic).
The word was co-opted in the 1930s by Mussolini to denote his power and authority and his party was named after them. And so "fascist" came to be associated for the sort of hard-right nationalism that he, Hitler and latterly Trump and Musk have espoused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
I think you may have misread my comment; this was exactly the point I was making. The word fascism comes directly from the Latin fasces. In case you hadn't realised, it was the Romans who spoke Latin, hence fascism (in a roundabout way) comes from the Romans, via early 20th-century Italians.
The wider point here, is that the Roman empire itself was fascist. It was a culture that conquered and enslaved "lesser" cultures through force projection. The fact that it was apparently less explicitly racist and bigoted than modern-day fascists doesn't make it much better, holding the Romans up as some sort of paragon, as is implied by "oh it was a Roman salute" misses the point that the Romans were nasty bastards too. It's a bit like saying, "oh I wasn't emulating Hitler, I was emulating Mussollini, or Genghis Khan, or Pol Pot, or Stalin, etc. etc."
<......."It is clear nobody has been paying attention to the industry. If you check SMMT (Society of Motor Manurfactures and Traders) Tesla sales have been going down for over 18 months."....>
Much as I dislike Musk, and much as I dislike Tesla, and much as I dislike the type of people who typically drive them, I have to say that it really is not possible to draw any firm conclusion from one months Tesla sales figures for the European market (including the UK). I seem to think that all European market Teslas come from China, and do so in large and fairly well spaced out shipments, which leads to some very erratic monthly sales figures for the Tesla brand.
If you do actually look at the UK sales figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), you will find that their monthly sales since March 2024 have been thus:
March = 6995
April = 1352
May = 3152
June = 6757
July = 2462
August = 3013
September = can't find the exact figure, but was certainly in excess of 7000
October = 971
November = 4558
December = 8645
Sales are high in the month that a shipment arrives in the UK, and the following month is much lower because stocks are becoming depleted. Where there is a fresh arrival of cars and there is a particularly high volume sold (through delivery of cars ordered but not available in the weeks since the previous shipment, there are almost always low sales of Tesla the following month - there were 8645 Teslas registered/sold in December 2024 (a very high month for Tesla) so it fits the usual pattern for January to see a significant drop, in much the same way as October saw only 971 Teslas sold/registered following a large showing in the September figures.
This has pretty much always been the pattern for sales of Tesla in the UK (and Europe as a whole).
When you see Teslas sales figures being consistantly below 1500 (and falling) for several months in a row, that will be the time for rejoicing :)
I knew a few owners, they are all ex-Tesla owners now. They all still drive EVs just from other brands.
As the commentards have said Tesla was new for a while. It had one of the first EV cars available with performance and range plus they had their charger network to boot which was free to start with.
Now the massive weight of the automotive industry has pivoted to make reasonable EVs as well and what they have as an advantage is 100+ years of experience in building and maintaining vehicles.
Those ex-Tesla owners didn't go back for a few reasons but none that haven't been raised in the comments. Terrible residuals especially when trading back to Tesla, very poor build quality (like 1970s British Layland quality) and problems with parts supply and servicing.
But most of them spoke highly of the drivetrain, most of the tech and the performance. But now they get most of the performance, most of the range but for similar or less money and in cars that don't have bits falling off them.
For Germany, it might also play a role that Tesla once again scored last in the "TÜV Report". Due to significant or dangerous defects, one in five cars fails the biannual examination every car has to go through in Germany. See e.g. (sorry, in german) https://www.adac.de/news/tuev-report-2025/ or others, just google "TÜV report Tesla".
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