Only 18 percent of buyers placed Tesla top of their shortlist last year, down from 22 percent in 2023
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- Tesla’s global brand appeal has declined, according to a UBS poll.
- American buyers’ positive view of Tesla dropped from 38% to 29%.
- Chinese EV buyers increasingly lust after BYD and Xiaomi, not Tesla.
Not so long ago Tesla’s brand seemed almost bulletproof. Its cars were showered with praise for being faster, more advanced than rival EVs and CEO Elon Musk was hailed as a maverick genius. But things have changed and Tesla’s brand halo has dimmed considerably, according to the results of new poll from UBS.
The numbers vary from region to region around the world, but buyers in China, Europe and the US all agree that the appeal of owning a Tesla is much weaker than it once was. And rival carmakers, both new and old, from BMW to Xiaomi, are wasting no time in capitalizing on that fall from grace.
Also: Xiaomi’s First SUV Looks Like A Ferrari But It’s Priced Like A Tesla
Global figures show the number of buyers who placed Tesla as their top brand fell to 18 percent last year, down from 23 percent in 2022. Looking just at US buyers, the number placing Tesla first dropped from 38 percent to 29 percent, and in Europe it slumped from 20 to 15 percent.
But it’s in China where Tesla is really struggling, in large part due to the availability of aggressively priced domestic EVs that are crammed with technology and are mostly not yet available to Western car buyers. The percentage of Chinese buyers who placed Tesla as their top brand was just 14 percent last year, down from 18 percent in 2023. Back in 2020, it stood at 30 percent, SCMP reports citing the same UBS survey.
“In China, we see intense competition and Tesla is no longer seen as the technology leader,” UBS’s analysts wrote. “In Europe, we believe there may have been brand damage from Musk’s political involvement. Overall, we remain cautious on Tesla stock.”
New Competitors Are Stepping Up Their Game
Tesla may have started the EV revolution, but other new players are now making serious moves. Smartphone maker Xiaomi’s first ever car, the SU7, has been well received, and its new YU7 SUV is sure to be an equally big hit, offering far more style than the equivalent Tesla Model Y. But it’s BYD that’s causing real pain to the American EV brand in the sales charts, and not only in China.
For the first time ever, BYD outsold Tesla in Europe last month, according to data from Jato Dynamics. In April, the Chinese automaker delivered 7,231 EVs, marking a 169% increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, Tesla’s sales dropped by 49%, with just 7,165 units sold during the same period. Across Europe, overall EV sales surged by 28%, reaching 184,300 units and increasing their share of the car market from 13% to 17%.
