Paul Jolly: Trouble in Tesla-town

The latest UK sales figures for new Tesla EVs last month came as quite a shock, with a drop of 62 per cent and Sweden an unbelievable 80 per cent drop.

Undoubtedly a large proportion of this will be as a result of Elon Musk’s recent political foray with the Republican Party and association with Donald Trump. He accepted the invitation to involve himself in cutting US government waste and inevitably will find himself rubbing up against many Democrats who are also, or at least were, potential Tesla customers.

Tesla as a whole saw profits drop 71 per cent and a share value drop of 37 per cent despite overall European EV sales advancing.

Elon Musk now plans to reduce his time with government affairs and return to running his car business. The only benefit of this recent excursion has been to his ego and not Tesla.

Another staggering set of figures has also recently emerged with the amount of discounting of new EVs in the UK. Clearly the UK government target and penalties for missing the 28 per cent EV sales are having some effect, but the reality is that customers are still shying away from putting their hard-earned money into new electric cars.

Excluding baby city EVs and exotica such as Porsche, the majority of electric cars come in at between £30,000 and £50,000, which includes vast numbers of Chinese production plus Tesla, Vauxhall, Ford, Nissan, Peugeot and others.

Well outside this price band sits the premium EV Jaguar I-Pace, with incredible looks and 4WD performance to match the £74,000 price tag. However, an Autotrader search shows that you can buy today, from a host of Jaguar dealers up and down the country, 2025 models with delivery mileage at an unbelievable 50 per cent discount. So, for around £37,500, you get a premium product for mainstream money.

The Tesla image appears to have become the rep’s car of choice that you see belting up the outside lane on the motorway network, with most of them in white. But with the Jaguar undercutting this once premium model by a significant £15000 on average, I fear the Tesla brand is in trouble.