Summary
Tesla’s registrations in France dropped 63% in January, their lowest since August 2022, far outpacing the broader total EV sales’ 0.5% decline.
Tesla registrations across EU countries fell 13% last year, with Germany accounting for much of the decline.
Sales in Germany, Tesla’s biggest European market, also fell 41% last year due to an aging lineup, competition, and subsidy cuts.
CEO Elon Musk’s political involvement, including support for Germany’s far-right party, may be affecting demand.
Give me a break.
Hate on Musk all you’re pleased, I’ll join you. But I can’t deny how much better tesla was vs every other brand I’ve test driven (Ford, Kia, Polestar mg etc). Their software is unmatched unfortunately. Until we get another brand do this shit right, tesla will be the top car. EV is only as good as its software. Most other brands are half a decade behind.
Again, if you have experience and disagree? I’m happy to discuss! I’d love to hear about your experience with brands I haven’t tested. But 90% of comments here likely never driven Tesla and are just spewing bullshit because they dislike Musk. It’s fine not to buy a car because of it, but trying to mental gymnastics into the car being bad makes people look like complete idiots.
I’m sure there will be smart asses here talking about quality control or software recalls, so what? Sell so many of anything and you’ll have bad apples. You think other brands haven’t got those?
Well… as a current Tesla owner and previous owner of 5 different cars (one of em french!) I have to say that this car has had the worst hardware I’ve ever experienced. And it sure brings down the experience a tad when – let’s say – your side door window physically cracks because it failed to raise the window by half a centimeter, so it crashes into the car side when you try to close it. Or when the hinge in the boot just breaks randomly and the remote fix-r-up guy cannot do anything about it. Or when the side mirror just stops working because it’s chilly outside.
But sure, the software is pretty ok. And some things remain pretty nice, like the acceleration.
That’s really a matter of opinion. I love CarPlay and prefer it to Tesla’s screen. The voice recognition is just not as good and fails most of the time when I ask it to dial or send a text message. It lacks WhatsApp integration, and my favorite podcast app just doesn’t work with Tesla’s system and never will.
Hyundai feels more comfortable both in seats and interface; I prefer actual buttons rather than trying to scroll through menus at high speed to turn on and off car features. Non-round steering wheels and lack of turn stalks should be banned for safety. I feel safer glancing at a speedometer in front of me rather than glancing away from the road so often. And Hyundai Ioniq cars have much better self driving on highway compared to what Tesla has, as Tesla keeps nearly clipping trucks or going out of lanes forcing me to take over far too often. I even like the auto park features.
But this really is a matter of opinion and preference.
Tesla cars are a mixed bag (for Europeans, at least).
The software is good (although it got worse, many things now require multiple touches, which is really bad when driving), and it is better than every other brand I know.
But a lot of other aspects are suboptimal. E.g. the insulation is sub-par, resulting in more noise. The assistance systems are really bad, the car tried to kill me multiple times on the Autobahn. The cameras are bad when it’s dark outside, often I have to guess what I see in the rear camera when parking. The placement of the rear camera leads to dirt on it, I have to clean it every day to be able to use it. Etc, pp.
Nothing is so bad that I would advise against a Tesla, but these are many small paper cuts I was not used to in other brands.
That said: don’t buy a Tesla. Musk is a Nazi. Don’t support Nazis, punch them.
Edit: didn’t notice the train joke. Nice, you got me ;-)
Should I buy a car from the manufacturer that was founded by Adolf Hitler instead?
Pretty sure it’s a joke and the Electric Vehicle here are trains, as those 4 are train manufacturers. Regarding your (small) rant, no opinion, but the joke is funny and the electric train is the superior mean of transportation.
I get the joke, Siemens isn’t making cars obviously. But the sentiment stays. I’m in UK, our trains are nowhere as good as the mainland Europe ones unfortunately.
Not denying that, but it becomes a public investment issue and not a car manufacturer issue. There is no UK train manufacturer anymore, only branch of international manufacturers. It is clear that tesla is targeting an high end market and you have to be careful to compare their cars to similar ones with similar price point. I hope a 60ke car is better than a 30ke one, the question is how it compares to other 60ke cars. Then again I like train and know nothing of cars so I am not dismissing your opinion.
I never owned a tesla, i only know people who own and have owned teslas and it’s a mixed bag. It’s really not as simple as “car very good” and “car very bad” the biggest problem with the early gen tesla (imo) is that they aren’t really thought out in many many places. My mechanic friend bought an early gen tesla for cheap and we started to pull it apart because it made odd noises. I have never seen such a weird ass car. They just glued in neoprene (or whatever that is) and other parts into the body panel for some reason. Well one reason is that the car collects dirt in the panels. And i mean i pulled out buckets of dirt from that car. The interior is incredible cheap lookjng and feeling. A lot of things in that car was just bizzar. It was like a show car, that wasn’t ment to drive because everything seemed so flimsy so they just added stuff to make it not fall apart.
A guy i know ordered a then new tesla (around 2021) he was supposed to get the car in august that year, they delivered it around christmas. He’s a real fanboy and he was so excited for that car. When they delivered it, the car was absolutely shit. Panel misalignment is normal with these cars, but this was crazy, and not just panels, also interior and the car rattled and what not. He didn’t accept it and the delivery guy told him the car just goes to the next guy on the list until someone accepts it. So he got another car in march or so. His windshield broke a bit later and it took them 8 month to get a new one, and because they don’t have a real garage, he delivered it and they took it somewhere. It was gone for a long time and they didn’t just change the windows, they also changed out the drivetrain and didn’t say anything. This part is speculative to be honest, but it usually doesn’t take more than a month to change the windscreen and when we put the car on a lift, the frivetrain was suspiciously clean compared to the rest of the car. They denied everything tho. These are my first hand experiences, and reading the problems other tesla owners have, it’s pretty clear that quality, quality control and customer service is like dead last on the list.
I have a Tesla (it’s 4 years old, dont kill me. I wouldnt buy one now. I would unbuy it if I could. Fuck Elon, fuck Tesla) and my boyfriend has a new Hyundai Ioniq 5. The Ioniq is a really cool car, no problems yet with it so far, but the Tesla absolutely demolishes it from a software/end user standpoint.
It is definitely the best non-Tesla EV I’ve played with so far, though, but I am so glad he decided on it over a 2nd Tesla. I dont think I could look at him anymore if he bought one at this point…
That’s odd, because usually when I’m driving a car, the only software I really need to do its’ job is the powertrain control module and I haven’t noticed that being so bad in literally any manufacturer.
The software part is odd to me too. I build weird electric vehicles for fun. Things like gokarts, bikes, rc cars, drones, whatever. My favourite part about electric vehicles is how easy they are. Battery goes to speed controller, speed controller goes to motor. Motor spins when it gets a imput. Obviously there is a bit more going into in when you build a real car. But not that much.
Oh I am not saying that Tesla is not making good cars, but that cars are inferior to trains. Those companies mostly had full self driving before Tesla was founded. They also all build high speed rail, which means they are faster then Tesla. Trains also use less energy then cars. The onboard entertainment mainly is bring your own device and use the WiFi, but options for restaurants are decently common.