Tesla sales plunge again as anti-Musk boycott shows staying power and rivals pounce on the weakness

By BERNARD CONDON Associated Press NEW YORK Sales of Tesla electric cars fell sharply in the last three months as boycotts over Elon Musk s political views continue to keep buyers away The plunge in global sales over a year earlier suggests the damage to Tesla s brand from Musk s embrace of U S President Donald Trump and far-right European politicians is much deeper widespread and lasting than particular investors had expected The figures released by Tesla on Wednesday also signal that its quarterly earnings account due later this month could disappoint as rival electric-vehicle makers pounce on its weakness and steal realm share Related Articles Apple Alphabet and Tesla are holding the S P rally back back home to South Africa President Trump takes aim at Elon Musk over EV subsidies Tesla shares slump Walters State s war on carbon emissions faces setbacks in court and Congress How Donald Trump Is turning the US into an EV laggard Tesla sues Ex-Optimus engineer alleging theft of robotic deal secrets Sales fell to in April through June down from in the same three months last year During the latest period Musk formally left the Trump administration as a cost-cutting czar and hopes rose that sales would recover The Tesla CEO himself not long ago explained the company was in the midst of a major rebound in sales a comment contradicted by the latest figures Still several parts of the account were encouraging Sales of the Models and Y totaled above the estimate of from Wall Street analysts Tesla shares rose on the news The numbers weren t as bad as thought with all the analyst forecast cuts we saw over the past week commented Morningstar s Seth Goldstein though he added the analysis overall established the company faces big challenges The current product lineup is at region saturation and Tesla will need the new affordable automobile to grow deliveries Musk has promised a cheaper EV model would be coming this year that would boost sales It s not clear yet if Musk s latest feud with Trump will help lure back buyers who have been angry at the billionaire s political positions After Musk once again took to social media to criticize Trump s budget bill the president threatened Tuesday to use the power of his office to hurt his companies including Tesla pushing its stock down more than A June AP-NORC poll indicated about half of U S adults have an unfavorable opinion of Tesla including of Republicans The new figures come as Tesla is focusing less on new models and more on robots self-driving machinery and robotaxis ferrying passengers around without anyone behind the wheel Tesla is in the midst of a test run of robotaxis in Austin Texas that seems to have gone smoothly for the bulk part But it also has drawn the scrutiny of federal car safety regulators because of a sparse mishaps including one matter in which a Tesla cab was shown on a video heading down an opposing lane The competition from rival EV makers is especially fierce in Europe where China s BYD has taken a bite out of its field share Tesla sales fell in May in European countries even as the overall region for electric vehicles expanded sharply according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association Musk has acknowledged that his work as head of the Department of Governing body Efficiency and his embrace of European far-right candidates have hurt the company But he announced earlier this year that much of the sales plunge is due to customers holding off while they waited for an ugrade to Tesla s best selling Model Y That new version has been out for months now Tesla reports second quarter financial results on July In the first quarter net income fell