31% of Tesla House owners in Netherlands Think about 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 harm Tesla’s gross sales in California, considered one of 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 increasingly 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 all the good individuals working there (and usually additionally due to monetary stakes they’ve within the firm, as many are nonetheless hesitant to promote their TSLA inventory). Nonetheless, with every spherical of extremism, extra Tesla followers, homeowners, 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 largest pension funds on the earth — lately determined to promote its stake in Tesla [NASDAQ:TSLA]. On the finish of 2023, it had €782 million price of Tesla shares. Many Dutch Tesla homeowners discover themselves in an analogous “I can’t take any extra of this” boat.

A latest survey by EenVandaag obtained responses from 1000’s of EV homeowners and lessees, together with 432 individuals who owned or leased a Tesla. “Of these, 31 p.c are both considering promoting their automotive or have already performed so,” the survey discovered. In complete, 40% of homeowners felt embarrassed to personal the model in any case that had occurred. Clearly, that is one thing that occurred after falling in love with Tesla automobiles, the Tesla model, and doubtlessly even Elon Musk. It’s a severe turnaround. Briefly, we’re not simply seeing aversion to Tesla from individuals who personal different automobiles — we’re seeing it from an enormous portion of Tesla homeowners. That’s not a superb factor for future gross sales, even when these homeowners determine in the long run to not promote their Teslas.

“The dissatisfaction stems largely from Musk’s latest 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 Occasions writes.

“Musk’s management of X has additionally led to a decline in platform customers. Practically half (46 p.c) of X customers surveyed stated they’ve 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 degree of 2023 for Tesla, which continues to be a really excessive degree. The corporate virtually reached 2 million gross sales. Will all of those political issues hit laborious sufficient that Tesla will proceed to say no, and 2023 may 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 a number of the largest questions for the EV business 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 business 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 fascinating EV markets to look at. I’m curious to see if the sentiment discovered on this survey quantities to a lot by way of Tesla’s precise gross sales developments 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 lengthen to different nations — corresponding to Germany, France, and Scandinavian nations. We’ll see….