Elon Musk has shared a survey that was clearly unfavorable about Tesla final week, but it surely was made to look optimistic for Tesla after bots rigged the outcomes.
Tesla’s gross sales dropped by 41% in Germany final yr in comparison with 2023 regardless of EV gross sales surging 27% in the course of the yr.
Regardless of the already dangerous leads to 2024, Tesla’s gross sales had been down 70% within the first two months of 2025.
In 2024, the decline was attributed to harder EV competitors, however this yr is much more brutal and completely different. The sharp decline is attributed to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s quickly shedding credibility with Germans over his meddling in native elections and selling the far-right AfD social gathering.
Amid this evident disaster for Tesla in Germany, we reported final week on a survey of 100,000 folks by Germany’s in style T-On-line publication that confirmed that solely 3% of respondents would take into account shopping for a Tesla car.
Our article on the survey went viral, with hundreds of thousands of views on X:
Nonetheless, we had been stunned yesterday when Musk himself shared the identical survey, however with totally completely different outcomes.
Musk shared a publish that claimed the survey now factors to “70% of individuals in Germany would purchase a Tesla once more”:
This reversal of the outcomes of the continued ballot raised some purple flags.
Positive sufficient, T On-line has now reported that the survey has been manipulated by bots, with 253,000 votes coming from simply two IP addresses within the US:
The place these votes—and the sudden reversal of opinion—got here from was initially unclear. At first look, the variety of article views in latest days and the variety of survey contributors don’t appear to match. Preliminary inner analysis now exhibits that 253,000 of the votes solid got here from simply two IP addresses within the US . This implies that the survey might have been manipulated.
They shut down the survey after these findings had been revealed.
Electrek’s Take
Properly, this could assist Tesla’s restoration in Germany: manipulating surveys to make it appear like folks truly would purchase Tesla automobiles after they clearly don’t need to and are usually not shopping for them.
It was so clearly manipulated.
70% of individuals need to purchase a Tesla, particularly, when most surveys present that EVs, usually, are usually not even at that stage but.
As well as, Tesla is having points promoting greater than a thousand automobiles a month in Germany proper now.
The desperation is palpable.
