this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Summary

A survey of 100,000 Germans found that 94% refuse to buy a Tesla, signaling a major crisis for the company.

Tesla’s German sales dropped 70% in early 2025 after a 41% decline in 2024, despite overall EV sales rising.

Analysts attribute the slump to CEO Elon Musk’s far-right political endorsements, including promoting the AfD party and making Nazi-related gestures. Musk is under European investigation for political meddling.

With Tesla’s reputation plummeting, industry experts predict further losses in Germany’s competitive EV market.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

It is already dumb for a German to buy an American car. It is like a French buying an American wine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

As someone from Northern California might not have been the greatest analogy :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

There's plenty of really good American wines.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

But you can buy just as good and better wines cheaper and locally if you live in France.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

nobody claimed otherwise

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago

There are - sadly I won’t be buying any for at least 4 years and will be buying European.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Sadly our car industry slept way too long on electric vehicles and instead doubled down on combustion engines, even by fraudulent practices (e.g. Dieselgate).

Teslas were by far the best EVs for a long time. Nowadays, not so much.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Teslas were by far the best EVs for a long time

Were they though? Almost immediately after he stole the company from its founders/creators quality went down. But maybe there was enough residual quality to last him for a few years.

Anyhow, your point stands. Nowadays there's plenty more to choose from and what then was innovative just isn't anymore.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago

Okay, Elon Musk is a giant asshole, but not so big that it warps reality around it. Musk provided money and became chairman of Tesla in Jan 2004. The first production vehicle rolled out in 2005. All Teslas were produced after Musk joined Tesla. And while it could be argued that he did a hostile takeover of Tesla, usually theft doesn't include piles of cash going to the victim.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I mean, it technically may be true, but that's due to the complete lack of a viable competitor. Teslas are cheap, poorly made death traps. If you use auto pilot your basically being used as an unpaid crash test dummy. If you like being taken advantage of, then a Tesla is for you