Do Europeans buy less Tesla products because of Musk's close relationship with Trump?

To the United States now. And while Tesla boss Elon Musk has been busy shaking things up with his Department of Government Efficiency here in Europe, his car business was in the headlines this week. Figures released this week showed Tesla car sales in Europe were down 45% in January, compared to the same month last year. Only 10,000 Tesla vehicles were sold across the whole continent in that month. The news sent Tesla stocks tumbling. One analyst estimates that Elon Musk's close relationship with President Donald Trump accounted for some 10-15% of Europeans deciding against buying Tesla products. And we're joined now in the studio by our DW Business colleague, Cassandra Sunt. Cassandra, is that what this is here? Are European consumers really punishing Musk with their wallets? There's a lot of dots here, so let's try to connect them. Like you said, this figure is really startling. The January of this year, compared to January of last year, a nearly 50% jump. And that comes even as there seems to be an increased appetite for electric vehicles within Europe. So in January of this year, 166,000 EVs sold in Europe, compared to 120,000. So even as this pie is growing and this appetite is growing for more electric vehicles here in Europe, the Tesla slice of the pie is shrinking and shrinking. And there is activism around this, right? So there was this ad that just went viral recently, dubbing the Tesla the swastika car. There was a, what some have called a Hitler salute that was projected onto the Brandenburg Gigafactory, Tesla Gigafactory here in Germany. And there was as well, there's this little bit of a craze online where you can get a bumper sticker that says, I bought this before Elon went crazy, presumably, for your Tesla. For Tesla owners who want to just make that political conviction clear, interesting. So we've heard Tesla shares not doing well on this news, right? On this news, took a dive about 8%, which pushes its market value below a trillion dollars for the first time since November. And these last six months have seen a rise for Tesla stock. This started around the time that Donald Trump was elected. He was very active in the campaign. I would assume that people thought that that would affect the business as well at that point in a positive way, but maybe now having a negative effect. But I want to be clear, this is not the only bad news that the Tesla business has had in recent weeks. Tesla also saw a fall in yearly deliveries in 2024. And that happened even as there were some really lucrative deals to try to get people to buy cars at the end of the year. There were promotions like interest-free financing or free fast charging. And then there was, of course, the kind of womp womp that was the Cybertruck that really didn't meet expectations that the company had. Some analysts here in Europe are pointing to the idea that a decrease in subsidies is pushing folks and potential customers to cheaper options. Well, talk to me about Chinese carmakers. They're doing pretty well in Europe at the moment. That's right. A really stark counter example to Tesla is Chinese-made SAIC Motors. They sold 23,000 cars across Europe, an increase compared to the same time last year, 23,000 in January compared to the previous year. And again, we're comparing that to under 10,000 vehicles sold in January by Tesla. And there is some indication that Tesla fans are waiting out for the release of the new Model Y that's due out in May. I think that's really going to be a clear time to look at how much the shine has come off the Tesla brand, thanks to the political activities of Elon Musk. We'll have four months of him maybe working with Trump, if that holds, and also more months of his car sales to look at as well. Okay, so we'll have to circle back in May to see where this all stands then. Thank you so much. We've been speaking to Cassandra Sunt from DW Business.