- January European sales tumble
- Shares down 25% year-to-date
- Market cap dips below $1 trillion
Shareholders in EV (electric vehicle) maker Tesla (TSLA:NASDAQ) will be hoping for a rebound in the shares today after the firm delivered a particularly downbeat European sales report for January yesterday.
Tesla shares fell 8%, taking their year-to-date loss to 25% and pushing the firm’s market value below the $1 trillion mark to $948 billion, more or less wiping out the gains posted since President Trump’s election win in November.
INCREASED COMPETITION TAKING ITS TOLL
Sales of Tesla vehicles across the UK, EU and EFTA (European Free-Trade Area) slumped 45% last month to 9,945 units, with a 50% fall in the EU alone as the company faces growing competition from Chinese manufacturers.
The firm’s poor sales performance was particularly noticeable given electric car sales as a whole in Europe grew by more than a third last month according to the trade body.
Tesla's unit fell last year for the first time in over a decade as demand stalled, while Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi and BYD (1211:HKG) raised their game often including value-added features like partially-automated driving systems as standard in some of their models.
The US manufacturer is not only facing challenges in the European market – early reports suggest the long-awaited automated driving upgrade to its Chinese-market models has left owners disappointed.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Tesla blamed lower selling prices for its Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X vehicles as the reason for revenue and earnings missing estimates, but volume sales were also down with a noticeable drop in California, once the firm’s biggest domestic market.
