Tesla Making Yet Another Desperate Move in Europe

Tesla has been struggling in Europe, where its sales are down across the continent. In the United Kingdom, the company’s sales reportedly dropped 60 percent last month. With those cratering numbers, the EV firm appears to have made another, shall we say, incredibly generous offer to locals, as the company continues to combat lagging sales.

British newspaper The Times reports that Tesla has nearly halved the monthly cost of leasing one of its cars in the U.K. Elon Musk’s company has been “forced to offer discounts of up to 40 per cent to car leasing companies to shift more units,” it says. Previously, a lease of a Tesla Model 3 could cost customers as much as £600 to £700 a month, the newspaper writes. However, with discounts to leasing companies, which pass the savings on to customers, a Tesla Model 3 can now apparently be leased for some £252 a month.

With more and more frequency, Tesla seems to be offering special deals to its customers to gin up interest in its line of cars. Most notably, the company has been offering discounts and deals to goad drivers into buying its struggling metal heap, the Cybertruck.

In July, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association published figures that showed that Tesla sales in Europe had slumped by 33% in the first half of this year. During the same period, Musk himself noted that his company was headed for “a few rough quarters.” In general, Tesla’s European operations have been struggling ever since Elon Musk threw himself and hundreds of millions of dollars into politics.

But sales are down in the U.S., as well. In California (which was once the hub of Tesla’s popularity), sales have been dropping for quite some time. Tesla’s 2nd quarter earnings report this year also shared more bad news for the company, revealing that it was making less money than the previous year. In June, Musk reportedly fired his top salesman for North America and Europe, as sales continued to sag.

It’s unclear how much Tesla’s slumping sales have been spurred by increased competition from emergent EVs sold by Chinese companies and how much it has to do with lots of people hating its CEO over his destructive and meddlesome political activities. Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration earlier this year notably inspired a nationwide protest movement in the U.S., and his never-ending commentary on the EU’s business has made him a pariah across the pond.