While its CEO attempts to secure for himself the largest corporate payout in the history of corporate payouts, EV maker Tesla’s sales continue to wobble and flounder in a not particularly healthy fashion. Although the company’s sales in the U.S. jumped last quarter, many onlookers have attributed that bounce to the expiration of the U.S.’s EV tax credit (consumers likely rushed to buy an EV while it made financial sense to do so, so the thinking goes). Prior to that, Tesla’s Q2 results showed a 13 percent collapse of sales in the U.S., and some experts expect the company’s decline to continue.
In Europe, for instance, things aren’t looking great. Reuters reports that, in October, Tesla sales cratered by massive proportions from the preceding month. The outlet says that car registrations, which it describes as a “proxy” for sales, dropped 89 percent in Sweden, 86 percent in Denmark, 31 percent in Spain, and 50 percent in Norway. Meanwhile, overall EV sales for Europe saw a bounce of 119 percent during the same period, the outlet notes. The company’s sales in Sweden and the Netherlands have been falling for months.
However, there’s a silver lining for Tesla, which is that not all of its European operations have seen the same kind of failure. Reuters notes that Tesla’s sales were up by approximately 2.4 percent in France. It’s also notable that its recent losses have occurred after the car company enjoyed a slight uptick in European sales in September. Norway and Spain, in particular, were areas of modest growth for the car company last month.
Reuters credits Tesla’s problems in Europe to the usual suspects: competition from Chinese EV makers who have introduced newer models, and backlash against the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, for his attempts to meddle in politics—both in the U.S. and in Europe (Musk, for instance, has supported the notion that King Charles should abolish parliament in the United Kingdom—a country where the EV company has struggled as well).
As previously noted, despite the fact that his company is notably floundering, Musk is currently attempting to make himself the world’s first trillionaire with an obscene Tesla pay package that is unprecedented in pretty much every way. Tesla’s board has claimed that, if they don’t give Musk the money and thus make him absurdly wealthy, he might be motivated to flee the company. To that, many onlookers are left to wonder…yes, and how is that a bad thing, again?
In the U.S., Tesla had a tough year, as Musk’s ongoing political activities may have driven away large parts of the company’s user base (remember, until relatively recently, most Tesla drivers were liberals). Tesla’s Q3 results showed an increase in revenue of 12 percent year-over-year. However, the company’s operating income decreased some 40 percent during that same time period, Teslerati reports.
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