Tesla’s sales on a steep downward trend around the world

 

By Melissa Eddy and Jack Ewing

Melissa Eddy reported from Oslo, and Jack Ewing from New York.

April 2, 2025Updated 10:58 a.m. ET

If there is anyplace Tesla should be thriving, it’s Norway. Electric vehicles account for more than 90 percent of new car sales in the Scandinavian country, and buyers here are among the most sophisticated in the world when it comes to understanding the nuances of batteries, charging and range.

So, it hardly bodes well for Tesla that its sales in Norway have declined more than 12 percent so far this year. Sales for the first three months of the year were even worse in Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.

In fact, Tesla’s sales have been on a steep downward trend around the world: The company said on Wednesday that its global sales in the first quarter fell 13 percent from a year earlier.

Tesla said that it delivered nearly 337,000 cars during the quarter. That is down from 387,000 in the first three months of 2024 and less than in any period since the second quarter of 2022.

The company’s tepid sales at a time when electric vehicle sales were rising around the world reflected a number of serious problems, not least a consumer backlash against the prominent role that Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, is playing in the Trump administration.

Geir Rognlien Elgvin, an urban planner with the City of Oslo, bought his first Tesla in 2013, months after they were introduced in Norway. He has toured the company’s battery Gigafactory in Nevada. He met Mr. Musk when the executive was still mostly known for wanting to address climate change with electric cars and his rocket company, SpaceX.

But as Mr. Musk drifted to right-wing politics, Mr. Elgvin’s enthusiasm waned. And he grew concerned about the company’s data security policy.

Several months ago, he swapped his Tesla for a battery-powered cargo bike and a shared electric Volkswagen. “I would never drive a Tesla again,” he said. “It’s a question of ethics.”

Last year, Tesla accounted for nearly a quarter of car sales in Norway, far more than any other carmaker. But in the first two months of this year Tesla slipped to third place behind Volkswagen and Toyota. Teslas made up just 9 percent of new cars sold, less than half of its market share a year earlier.

For Tesla, the decline in the world’s most advanced electric vehicle market is ominous, signaling problems to come elsewhere. “Norway is always a good place to look into the future,” said Will Roberts, who follows electric vehicles at Rho Motion, a research firm.

There are several explanations for Tesla’s sales decline. The company depends on two models, the Model Y sport utility vehicle and the Model 3 sedan, for almost all of its sales. The Cybertruck pickup, Tesla’s newest and most polarizing model, has been plagued by recalls and has not sold as well as Mr. Musk predicted it would.

Tesla once set the standard for battery range, software and driver-assistance technology. But traditional carmakers have become more adept at building electric vehicles and have begun to catch up to Tesla in technology. Competitors like Volkswagen, Volvo, BMW — and, outside the United States, BYD, Xpeng and other Chinese manufacturers — offer a diverse selection of luxury sedans, minivans, pickups and compact cars.

“Tesla pretty much all of these years has been alone in Europe and the U.S.,” said Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO Dynamics, a research firm. “That’s not the case anymore.”