October was a rather uneventful month in Germany – except for Tesla and Volkswagen. New car registrations rose 6% YOY in October, says the federal regulator Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt. BEVs retreated by 4.9%, while the take-up for hybrids rose 15%.
Now for the more dramatic developments: Registrations of Tesla BEVs cratered to the tune of 51.9%. In the same month, registrations of BEVs made by the Volkswagen Group rose nearly 48%, taking 43.1% of the German BEV market. This was driven by the Enyaq BEV of Volkswagen’s budget-brand Skoda that outsold Tesla’s best-selling Model Y by nearly a factor of 3. No wonder Tesla is listed among the also-rans on our leaderboard.
Year-to-date, Tesla landed on 4th place with a market share of only 10.1%. For the year, Tesla is down by 42.5 Hypergrowth this is not.
Tesla is not doing well in Germany. Its German Grünheide factory runs at a capacity utilization of around 50%. In the business, capacity utilization below 80% reeks of losing money.