Shareholders Aren’t Powerless
0Tesla is in trouble in Europe.
Tesla sales are in free fall in Europe right now. Last month, Norway—where EVs overtook internal combustion vehicles in total market share in 2024—recorded a biting 37.9 percent slump. At the same time, Tesla sales in France fell by a thumping 63.4 percent. And it gets even worse: In Spain, Tesla sales plummeted by 75.4 percent.
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“I went so far as to test drive a Tesla in 2023, but at that time, [Musk’s] purchase of Twitter was complete, and I saw what he was doing to the platform,” says [Matthew] Hiller [who sells anti-Tesla merch]. “Skewing the algorithm to favor alt-right voices, promoting disinformation, banning people he didn’t like. Using his influence to wade into politics really turned me off buying a Tesla—it’s a MAGA hat on wheels.”
On the other hand, there’s a lot more going on here, at least in Canada.
Nationwide sales of Teslas were down 70 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025. Meanwhile, sales of all zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), which include both battery-powered and plug-in hybrids, were down even more — 79 per cent, according to S&P Global, which provided the Star with a preview of ZEV sales numbers that have not yet been made public.
Experts say the dramatic drop is due to the end of government subsidy programs and a hike in EV prices, which has made EVs as much as $21,000 more expensive than they were only seven weeks ago.
“Consumers in Canada are price sensitive and with these changes to the federal and provincial rebates, it’s negatively impacting what vehicles customers are looking to buy,” said James Hearn, S&P Global Mobility’s associate director of market reporting.
Unlike politics, the rise in upfront cost has hit all makes of ZEVs. Sales of Chevrolet ZEVs were down 65 per cent and Hyundai ZEVs were down 30 per cent month-over-month, the data show.
The federal $5,000 EV rebate ran out of money in January and Quebec, where nearly half of all ZEVs are sold, ended its $7,000 rebate at the end of last year.
Anecdotally, it seems like instances of vandalism of Teslas are up in the U.S., which is harder to explain with reference to the greater market for electric vehicles. There are a lot of protests going on, too, including one by Sheryl Crow. I’m sure Musk has market researchers pinning down the reason for slumping sales.
To the extent they’re driven by Elon Musk’s politics, and the way he’s expressing them, Tesla shareholders aren’t powerless–they can file a lawsuit on the basis that Tesla’s CEO is driving the company’s share value down. Shareholders are being urged to divest themselves of their shares if they want to hit Musk where it hurts, but a shareholder lawsuit could hit him harder.