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

NEW YORK AP 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 several investors had expected The figures disclosed by Tesla on Wednesday also signal that its quarterly earnings assessment due later this month could disappoint as rival electric-vehicle makers pounce on its weakness and steal arena share v 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 of late declared the company was in the midst of a major rebound in sales a announcement contradicted by the latest figures Still particular parts of the description 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 mentioned Morningstar s Seth Goldstein though he added the review overall indicated the company faces big challenges The current product lineup is at territory saturation and Tesla will need the new affordable bus 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 manifested 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 instrument 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 largest part part But it also has drawn the scrutiny of federal car safety regulators because of a sparse mishaps including one scenario 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 territory share Tesla sales fell in May in European countries even as the overall sphere for electric vehicles expanded sharply according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association Musk has acknowledged that his work as head of the Department of Ruling body Efficiency and his embrace of European far-right candidates have hurt the company But he explained 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