Elon Musk can’t blame Tesla’s Europe crisis on a weak car market—EVs are selling in record numbers while his drop by almost half

“That’s true of all manufacturers. There’s no exceptions,” he stated at the Qatar Economic Forum, flatly denying consumers are shying away from Tesla. “The European car market is quite weak.” 

How he arrived at that conclusion is anyone’s guess, however, given that EVs are selling in record numbers in Europe. They just don’t sport a Tesla badge.

Data published on Tuesday showed total demand across the continent—including affluent non-EU member states like Norway, Switzerland, and the U.K.—hit all-time highs both for the month of April and year to date. 

Registrations of new fully electric vehicles in the region jumped to nearly 184,700 cars last month, according to industry association ACEA, while cumulative figures through the end of April increased to over 758,100 cars. 

Both represented best-ever marks in absolute volume as well as a 28% rise for their respective period. Percentage gains were broadly distributed through most markets with some like Italy even seeing EV demand double in April. 

As impressive the EV gains racked up across the continent were, they would have been even better had Musk’s Tesla not weighed them down. That’s because the story for his carmaker couldn’t possibly be any more different.

European buyers have been suffering from a case of ‘Tesla shame’

Across all 31 markets, demand for Musk’s vehicles plunged by 49% in April over the previous year’s period. Only January’s decline was worse by a hair. Year to date, the drop amounts to 39% for the brand. 

Tesla bulls have argued for months that Musk’s politics is not to blame for the drop, but rather it’s a result of the Model Y refresh: Customers knew in January that a newer version was coming just two months later and might have postponed their purchase. 

But Tesla labors under the exact same issue in China, although there the cumulative decline was limited to just 1% over the first four months of this year. This suggests consumers really are suffering from “Tesla shame” in countries like the Netherlands.

With brands like Volkswagen and Škoda scooping up new customers, Tesla’s share of the European EV market has collapsed to roughly 4% in April from almost 10% the prior year. In fact, according to automotive market researcher JATO Dynamics, even sales of China’s BYD fully electric models, excluding its plug-in hybrids, outnumbered those of Tesla in Europe last month.

“The implications are enormous,” said Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO, in a statement. “This is a watershed moment for Europe’s car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the BEV market for years.”

Industry argues EV sales may be good, but they’re not nearly good enough

Since it takes time to tabulate all the data from 31 different countries, ACEA data comes with a material lag. This month it published data on April just days before the first figures for May start to trickle out. But there is no third-party source for freely public data that more comprehensively breaks down European new car registrations by brand, or EV demand country by country. 

Despite the very strong numbers, the lobby group that represents European carmakers’ interests in Brussels said the continent’s EV numbers weren’t nearly enough. 

“The battery-electric car market share for April 2025 [year-to-date] stood at 15.3%, still far from where it was expected to be,” the ACEA said in a statement. 

Europe’s auto industry has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in EVs by its own count, but has complained to the EU that demand is not picking up fast enough to ensure the business is as profitable at scale as selling cars with combustion engines.