Teslas are getting torched in Berlin as surveys show Germans are deserting Elon Musk’s carmaker in droves

• Created and T-Onine surveys show a sharp decrease in preference For the Germans. Sales decreased in the first two months of this year by 71 %, amid a controversy over Musk’s embrace of AFD in addition to closing scheduled production.

In a wealthy residential neighborhood in Berlin, four Tesla vehicles were burned to fragile in the early morning hours of Friday after they were unknown.

This last work is now being investigated by intentional burning to catch Elon Musk cars by a special committee for its potential political motivation, according to the city’s police administration.

Another symbolic blow to the complex love relationship between musk and a country that includes its only manufacturing factory in Europe, is less than an hour away from crime scenes.

While the four burning cars may be the most manifestation of Germans that have turned into their appearance, investigative studies indicate that consumers in the largest economy in Europe ignore the brand because Musk’s embrace of President Donald Trump and the populist population.

“The relationship between Musk’s behavior cannot be overlooked.”Handelsblatt.

His team conducted a survey of the Germans on their opinion on Tesla for several months. In August, shortly after Musk Trump’s hands, 31 % looked at the purchase of Tesla as his next car.

This fell to only 16 % in January amid Trump’s inauguration and scandal about the harsh musk gesture that paid comparisons with Nazi salutations. However, February showed a simple recovery to 20 %, according to the paper on Monday.

After the January and February catastrophe, you should see Mars improve

This is still much more positive than an informal survey conducted by T-online last week, which asked the Germans if they would buy Tesla. More than 94 % “no” responded while only 3 % claimed that they were still.

Although it was not done with the usual rigor, the professional polling company like Caliber, and therefore not a statistical actress, was noticeable that a record number participated, with nearly 100,000 votes through the site.

From a direction, it indicates that the brand loses the ground in Germany, which is associated with the United Kingdom as the largest EV market in Europe with nearly 380,000 cars that were sold last year.

The latest sales data support this. In January, the new Teslas records decreased by 60 %, which was the descent that accelerated to 76 % in February.

Part of this is due to the change of the original model Y, away from the best brand sales, to a slightly newer release that was first displayed this month. In this process, Tesla Factory is closed outside Berlin for a period to prepare the assembly line.

Some customers will also postpone a purchase to wait for the update, so Mars’s results are likely to see a sharp improvement in the acute collapse of the first two months.

The controversial greeting pictures may occur in German laws

The direction of recent opinion polls indicates that Tesla will struggle to the decline in the market share of the lost market, given the increasing number of competitors ’models. A group of Germans is angry with his failed attempt to install the extreme right in power in the elections last month.

It is a great fall of grace for entrepreneurship Musk, who took a great gamble in choosing Germany’s high -wage for its third factory location.

When local auto manufacturers in the country preferred to create new manufacturing factories in countries such as Hungary to benefit from the low costs of employment in Eastern Europe, Musk has invested billions of dollars to build its location on a plot of land on the outskirts of Berlin.

The high level in Germany is often the bureaucratic – including full printing of tens of thousands of pages allowing requests to save records – do not deter it. The opposition from some groups was not protesting the factory’s impact on local water supply.

However, Tesla Factory, which has contributed greatly to the weak economy in the region, has become a symbol of musk, not only the company. Last month, it was a background to protest with a picture of the Championship CEO expected to the building along with the phrase “Heil, Tesla”.

Greetings is strictly prohibited in Germany. Even the image itself as a political boss against Musk can fall into local laws.

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

2025-03-17 13:09:00