31% of Tesla House owners in Netherlands Take into account Promoting Their Automobiles Due to Elon Musk

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Elon Musk has gone from dabbling in far right-wing conspiracy theories and concepts to doing what appears to be a full-on Nazi salute — twice. It appears this has damage Tesla’s gross sales in California, one in all its most important markets, significantly, and Tesla really had fewer automotive gross sales in 2024 than in 2023 globally and BYD offered significantly extra BEVs within the 4th quarter than Tesla to take the BEV crown. Nonetheless, Musk has been doubling down, gobbling up an increasing number of conspiracy theories on X, and virtually performing like a sticker on Donald Trump’s sizable bum — together with all through the vacations.

Some Tesla followers who discover Musk’s conduct abhorrent and dangerous nonetheless avidly help the corporate due to all the great it does and the entire good folks working there (and usually additionally due to monetary stakes they’ve within the firm, as many are nonetheless hesitant to promote their TSLA inventory). Nevertheless, with every spherical of extremism, extra Tesla followers, house owners, and shareholders are saying sufficient is sufficient.

Within the Netherlands, a fairly righteous nation that leans left on the political scale, civil service pension fund ABP — one of many greatest pension funds on the planet — just lately determined to promote its stake in Tesla [NASDAQ:TSLA]. On the finish of 2023, it had €782 million value of Tesla shares. Many Dutch Tesla house owners discover themselves in an analogous “I can’t take any extra of this” boat.

A current survey by EenVandaag obtained responses from hundreds of EV house owners and lessees, together with 432 individuals who owned or leased a Tesla. “Of these, 31 % are both considering promoting their automobile or have already completed so,” the survey discovered. In complete, 40% of homeowners felt embarrassed to personal the model in spite of everything that had occurred. Clearly, that is one thing that occurred after falling in love with Tesla vehicles, the Tesla model, and probably even Elon Musk. It’s a critical turnaround. In brief, we’re not simply seeing aversion to Tesla from individuals who personal different vehicles — we’re seeing it from an enormous portion of Tesla house owners. That’s not a very good factor for future gross sales, even when these house owners resolve ultimately to not promote their Teslas.

“The dissatisfaction stems largely from Musk’s current actions, together with his involvement in European politics, his function in spreading and permitting misinformation on the platform X (previously Twitter), and his place in President Donald Trump’s administration following substantial monetary contributions to Trump’s marketing campaign,” NL Instances writes.

“Musk’s management of X has additionally led to a decline in platform customers. Almost half (46 %) of X customers surveyed mentioned they’ve just lately left or are contemplating leaving the platform, citing it as a ‘poisonous, hate-driven medium’ rife with conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

2024 is over. Gross sales weren’t nice, however they had been practically on the stage of 2023 for Tesla, which continues to be a really excessive stage. The corporate nearly reached 2 million gross sales. Will all of those political issues hit onerous sufficient that Tesla will proceed to say no, and 2023 could have been its peak, or was 2024 only a blip in proceed long-term development and success? What number of potential consumers are literally going to not purchase a Tesla due to Elon Musk, and what number of will particularly purchase a Tesla due to Elon Musk? These are among the greatest questions for the EV trade in 2025. Not solely do they have an effect on Tesla and Tesla inventory (presumably), however additionally they have an effect on the gross sales of EVs from different manufacturers and the general EV trade narrative.

The Netherlands is a fairly distinctive place. I lived there for five months and have been a fan of the nation for many years. It’s been one of the attention-grabbing EV markets to observe. I’m curious to see if the sentiment discovered on this survey quantities to a lot when it comes to Tesla’s precise gross sales tendencies within the nation (or if it’s extra speak than motion), and I’m additionally curious to see how a lot these sorts of emotions and actions prolong to different international locations — reminiscent of Germany, France, and Scandinavian international locations. We’ll see….