Tesla sales sink in UK, Germany as Europeans warm to Chinese rival BYD

Tesla sales plunged in Europe’s two biggest car markets over the past year, while low-cost Chinese rival BYD continued to race ahead — marking what industry watchers are calling a fundamental shift in the electric vehicle landscape.

Elon Musk’s pioneering EV company registered just 1,110 new vehicles in Germany last month, a 55% year-over-year drop in its largest European market, according to data released Tuesday.

In Britain, Tesla’s No. 2 market in Europe, Tesla sales cratered by nearly 60% year over year, with only 987 new registrations in July, according to the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The troubling sales figures come a day after Tesla shareholders granted Musk a new pay package worth nearly $30 billion.

The eye-popping compensation is intended to keep Musk focused on the company amid sluggish sales on both sides of the Atlantic in the past 12 months after the mogul increased his political activities.

In Europe, he’s publicly backed far-right figures and parties — supporting Reform UK and Tommy Robinson in Britain, endorsing Germany’s AfD, and expressing sympathy for Marine Le Pen in France.

In the US, the world’s richest person was Donald Trump’s largest donor during his presidential run and had a controversial stint in the White House as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency — before their very public falling out in May.

In Germany, Tesla has tumbled from third place to eighth in electric vehicle rankings for the first half of 2025, watching its market share shrink from 8.3% to 3.6%.

While Tesla has floundered, Germany’s EV sales jumped 58% overall and Britain saw growth of nearly 40% over the past seven months.

BYD, which counts Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as an investor, has raced up the charts with vehicles that cost about one-third less than Tesla’s cheapest model.

In Britain, the company more than quadrupled its registrations in July, building on momentum that saw it register 2,498 vehicles in June alone — a fourfold increase over the previous year.

Germany tells a similar tale. BYD’s first-half registrations shot up to 4,544 units, compared to around 900 during the same period last year.

The global picture reveals just how dramatically things have shifted. BYD sold over 1.1 million plug-in vehicles during the second quarter of 2025, including both battery-only cars and plug-in hybrids, while Tesla managed about 384,000 battery-only electric vehicles.

For the first time ever, BYD’s battery-only EV sales actually surpassed Tesla’s, with the company moving more than 2.1 million total vehicles globally in the first half of the year.

Despite Tesla’s woes across the pond, it has maintained its position as the most popular EV makers in the United States.

The company held a dominant 46% share of the EV market in the second quarter — even after sales dropped an estimated 15% in the first quarter of 2025.

But competition stateside is heating up.

Legacy automakers like General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Porsche posted major year-over-year gains in EV volume, signaling a shift in the competitive landscape.

Overall, EVs accounted for 7.4% of all new light-duty vehicles sold in the US during Q2 2025.