{"id":23909,"date":"2025-02-26T09:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T09:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tesla-shares-slump-after-european-sales-fall\/"},"modified":"2025-02-26T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T09:20:12","slug":"tesla-shares-slump-after-european-sales-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tesla-shares-slump-after-european-sales-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla shares slump after European sales fall"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Tom Espiner<\/span><\/p>\n

Business reporter, BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Shares in electric car maker Tesla have slumped more than 9% after EU and UK sales fell by almost half in January.<\/p>\n

The drop in Tesla shares took the company’s valuation back below $1trn for the first time since November 2024.<\/p>\n

Tesla has been facing stiff competition in the European market from Chinese and other manufacturers.<\/p>\n

In addition, Tesla owner Elon Musk has been making controversial political waves on both sides of the Atlantic, an analyst said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tesla sales in January bucked European electric car sale trends, which grew by more than a third in the month, according to trade body Acea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, Tesla sales across the EU, EFTA and the UK fell more than 45%, and more than 50% in the EU alone.<\/p>\n

It comes after Tesla sales fell last year for the first time in more than a decade as demand faltered and rivals gained pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The main factor in the January sales slump was likely to be increasing competition, AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said.<\/p>\n

Chinese manufacturer BYD has been making big strides, in part because it includes as standard some features which cost extra from other makers, Mould said.<\/p>\n

However, some car buyers may also be taking a “principled stand” on Musk’s political interventions, he said.<\/p>\n

Musk has made waves in the US with his involvement in slashing US development funds and efforts to drastically reduce US federal funding.<\/p>\n

In the UK he supports jailed far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, and repeatedly criticised Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

Musk also supports the far-right AfD party in Germany, and congratulated its leader after the party’s record second-place result in elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Too toxic?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Asked if the reason for Tesla’s share price slump was down to Musk being too toxic, a former senior director of the car maker’s Europe, Middle East and Asia division said it was “definitely one of the reasons for the decline”, but added there was a “cumulative number of things that are piling up a domino effect”.<\/p>\n

“There’s no doubt his flirting with the right in politics, running around on TV with a chainsaw is not exactly helping his image,” Peter Bardenfleth-Hansen told the BBC’s Today programme.<\/p>\n

“He may be getting a bigger fanbase within a specific type of clientele, but they’re not the ones that are buying the Teslas. They’re not the ones putting money in to his company. So he has a problem.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tesla shares got a big boost after the US election due to Musk’s closeness to Donald Trump – Musk has described himself as “first buddy” to the US president.<\/p>\n

Investors thought this would stand his businesses in good stead.<\/p>\n

However, Trump is not a supporter of electric vehicles, and has said he will cancel efforts to boost their ownership.<\/p>\n

“How anybody thought this was going to be good for Tesla, I don’t know,” Mould said.<\/p>\n

There is also general market skittishness about the path of interest rate cuts and concerns about Trump tariff plans that could be contributing to the fall, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Espiner Business reporter, BBC News Getty Images Shares in electric car maker Tesla have slumped more than 9% after EU and UK sales fell by almost half in January. The drop in Tesla shares took the company’s valuation back below $1trn for the first time since November 2024. Tesla has been facing stiff competition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[2845,662,225,1228,3894,1219],"class_list":["post-23909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-european","tag-fall","tag-sales","tag-shares","tag-slump","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23911,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909\/revisions\/23911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}