Tesla’s European Sales Plunge

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 24, 9:15AM EST

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) sales in the European Union have plunged to a three-year low, part of a wider decline.
Tesla’s stock remains well-positioned for as long as investors view it as an AI and robotics firm.

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Tesla’s European Sales Plunge — © Andrei Stanescu / Getty Images

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) November report on EU car registrations, the figure for Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) decreased 34.2% to 12,130. For the first 11 months of the year, they were down 38.8% to 129,024. The declines are part of a larger problem that runs from China to the United States. It also shows the extent to which the company’s strong stock performance this year is based on founder and CEO Elon Musk insisting that Tesla is not a car company but an artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicle, and robotics company.

Tesla’s U.S. sales dropped 23% to a three-year low of 39,800 in November, Reuters reports. Sales in China, the world’s largest EV market by far, also signaled trouble. According to Barron’s, “In November, the electric-vehicle maker sold just over 73,000 cars in China, down almost 1% year over year, according to industry data tracked by Citi analyst Jeff Chung.”

Tesla’s problem in the European Union is worse than it first seems. Registrations for BYD vehicles were up 235.2% to 16,158. For the year, the figure increased by 240% to 110,715. BYD, the world’s largest EV company, is Tesla’s biggest rival. The Chinese company has charged into countries outside its home market.

Tesla’s stock has shaken off the bad news about car sales. It is up 20% this year to about $485. What is more impressive is that its shares traded at $217 in March. This was primarily due to Musk’s involvement with President Trump’s effort to downsize the U.S. government, which eventually led to a falling out between the two. Tesla is the world’s eighth most valuable company, with a market cap of $1.61 trillion.

Tesla has begun testing its self-driving robotaxi in Austin and aims to roll out tests in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. However, it needs to contend with other operators in the same space, led by Alphabet’s Waymo. Legacy car manufacturers, including Ford and GM, are also launching products of their own.

Tesla’s robotics claim is impossible to evaluate. Its humanoid robot, Optimus, has not had an impressive debut.

If investors ever return to viewing Tesla as a car company, the stock is in trouble.

Tesla Stock Price Prediction and Forecast 2025–2030

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.