The sale of new Teslas in the European Union also fell in April. In that month, 52.6 percent fewer electric cars of the brand were sold than a year earlier, according to figures from the European automotive industry association ACEA.
In the EU, 5,475 new Teslas were registered last month. In the year before, that was still 11,540. Over the first four months of this year, Tesla sales fell by 46 percent to 41,677 cars.
Tesla is suffering from the uproar surrounding CEO Elon Musk because of his work for the American president Donald Trump. These are huge government cuts, accompanied by mass layoffs.
Furthermore, Musk receives a lot of criticism in Germany for his support of the far-right party AfD in the parliamentary elections earlier this year. There have been calls for a boycott of Tesla.
Tesla’s market share last month was 0.6 percent. That was 1.3 percent in April last year.
Slight increase in total sales
With more than 925,000, total sales of new passenger cars in the EU in April were slightly higher than a year earlier. Over the first four months, a slight decrease to more than 3.6 million cars was seen.
According to ACEA, in the Netherlands, since the beginning of this year, there has been a sales decrease of almost 9 percent to 118,681 new passenger cars.
Electric cars had a market share in the EU of 15.3 percent last month. Hybrid cars accounted for more than 35 percent of the market. The combined share of gasoline and diesel cars was more than 38 percent.