Ross Clark Ross Clark

Think you’re so clever boycotting Tesla?

Credit: Getty Images

How difficult life has become for earnest, liberal-minded motorists who like to show off their environmental credentials through their choice of car. Until recently, they were buying Teslas by the car park-load. But now they seem suddenly to have gone off them.

European Tesla sales have plummeted since Donald Trump’s election victory brought Elon Musk into government as axeman-in-chief. Nowhere has the plunge been more precipitous than in Germany, where sales fell 60 per cent in January and a further 76 per cent in February – when just 1,429 Teslas were sold. Existing Tesla owners, too, appear to be dumping their vehicles prematurely. In Britain, the prices of a one-year-old Tesla are reported to be 21 per cent lower than at the same time last year (that’s the price of a 2024 model Tesla in 2025 compared with the price of a 2023 model in 2024).

You might want to save the planet, but then you can hardly demean yourself by associating with a man who has expressed support for the AfD and gave what looked to many people like a Nazi salute.

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