Europeans still aren’t buying Teslas with figures out Wednesday showing sales plunged for a fifth month in a row in May, a blow to investors who had hoped anger toward Elon Musk would have faded by now.
Tesla sales fell 28% last month in 30 European countries even as the overall market for electric vehicles expanded sharply, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. The poor showing comes after Tesla’s billionaire CEO had promised a “major rebound” was coming last month, adding to a recent buying frenzy among investors.
They were selling on Wednesday, pushing the prices down more than 4% in early afternoon trading.
Except Tesla wasn’t the first mass market EV. It wasn’t even the second. The first would be the GM EV1 in 1997:
Many would argue that the EV1 doesn’t count because it was on old technology. Fine then, the Nissan Leaf from 2009 then sporting its lithium battery:
Tesla Model S brought performance, range and styling that both of those were missing. However, we don’t need Tesla anymore in the world if Musk is still benefiting from it.
Flocken Elektrowagen, 1888
You skipped the “mass market” part.
Those advancements were made possible by the Roadster, which was the true pioneering product that made EVs cool again. A car that was dreamed up and invented by Martin Eberhard, and would go on to be built by someone else that gave him the shittiest end of the most shit-covered stick there ever was.
Everything that has given Tesla a reputation as an imnovative company was either done by the original inventor or their amazing engineers over the years.
Elon brings money and celebrity recognition to the company. If the celebrity recognition turns and becomes a net negative, the money is going to start becoming an issue too because his loans might get called and then he’s got nothing to bring to the table. I choose to dream about that future right now.
All credit due to Eberhard and Tarpenning for the idea and some of the initial development of the BMS, but its not like they had a full car ready to sell and before Musk came in. Tesla was established as a company in 2003, Musk was brought in (with his money) in 2004. The first Roadster sold in 2008. Now stop making me say anything positive about Musk just to set the record straight. Its making me sick to talk about him positively after what he’s become and how much harm he has caused human society.
Electric cars have been around for a very long time. According to Wikipedia, in 1912, 38% of 33,842 cars in the US were electric.
I think that Tesla showed that a modern performance car could be electric. It made electric cars cool again.
I would never be caught in a Tesla though.