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Tesla sales in Germany have cratered from last year, data shows
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., arrives at the Tesla plant in Gruenheide, Germany, on March 13, 2024.
Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla sold just 750 electric vehicles in Germany for October 2025, less than half of what it sold a year ago, according to data out Wednesday from the country’s federal transport authority, known as KBA.
In October last year, Tesla sold 1,607 EVs in Germany.
KBA data shows 434,627 new battery electric vehicles year to date, the KBA data said, up nearly 40% from the same period last year. Of those EVs, 15,595 were Teslas, a decline of 50% for Elon Musk’s automaker this year.
Tesla operates a massive vehicle assembly plant in Brandenburg, Germany, which is outside of Berlin, but the company is not a hometown favorite.
Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric and endorsement of AfD, Germany’s extremist, anti-immigrant party, have weighed on left-leaning consumers’ interest in the Tesla brand there.
Tesla also faces a passel of European and Chinese competitors throughout Europe offering smaller and more affordable EVs, many priced below 35,000 euros.
During October, Tesla began selling a new, lower-cost version of its Model Y SUV in Germany. The stripped-down version of the SUV was priced at 39,990 euros for the German market — about 5,000 euros lower than the cheapest, previously available versions of the Model Y there.
It remains to be seen whether Tesla’s new, lower-priced model variants can help revitalize demand for their EVs in Germany or Europe.
Policy changes ahead may lift EV sales in Germany, overall.
Germany scrapped incentives to boost purchases of fully electric vehicles about two years ago, a policy change that led to a sharp drop in demand for fully electric vehicles, initially. The country is now poised to start up a new EV incentive program that goes into effect in January 2026, and is intended to help lower- and middle-income buyers adopt zero tailpipe emission vehicles.
