Medical equipment executive Duncan Watson didn’t think twice about looking elsewhere when his lease expired on his Model 3. ‘The man is a disgrace!’ Watson said, referring to Musk. He’s swapped the Tesla for an SUV from Polestar, the Sino-Swedish brand that long sat in Tesla’s shadow but is now emerging as a non-toxic alternative in the high-tech premium EV space.

Next door Gordon Fisher, owner of a marketing consultancy, is keeping the faith even as his Model Y languishes at the service centre awaiting one of Tesla’s infrequent shipment of parts. ‘I still love it,’ he says. ‘I never really connected Musk with the car.’

The question over the direction of the wider market is crucial for Tesla’s future, which is looking precarious as sales tumble at the start of the year across Europe and elsewhere.

February sales were down 76 per cent in Germany, 44 per cent in France, 48 per cent in Denmark, and 48 per cent in Norway. Further afield sales in Australia fell 72 per cent in the same month, and – this is the big one – 49 per cent in China. The collapse in sales in the world’s biggest EV market put Tesla’s delivery figures at their lowest level since July 2022, at the height of Covid, Bloomberg calculated. At the same time BYD sales climbed 161 per cent.

The UK remains an outlier so far this year, with sales up 21 per cent in February to cancel out a decline in January, according to figures from automotive lobby group the SMMT. That could suggest that of the two neighbours it’s Tesla-loyal Gordon with the more mainstream view.

Probably not, argues David Bailey, professor of business economics at the Birmingham Business School. The whole EV market in the UK spiked 42 per cent in January and February year, taking the shine off Tesla’s 21 per cent jump. Bailey’s suggestion is that the whole market has been dragged forward as car makers and consumers alike sprint to avoid the additional VED and associated Expensive Car Tax that rope in EVs from 1 April.

When that has shaken out, the Musk effect will be more clearly seen. ‘He’s toxic for Tesla,’ Bailey said. Tesla was already running into difficulties as rivals pull up and even overtake what is now an outdated range of essentially just two models. ‘Tesla can’t compete on cost compared to the Chinese. It can only differentiate itself as a premium product and charge more, but I don’t think that is doable with Musk in charge,’ he added.

Another barometer is the residual value of secondhand models – and there’s bad news there too.

Trade price bible CAP HPI shows that in the last three months, prices for an average three-year-old EV with 30,000 miles on the clock have lost 0.8 per cent in value, meaning electric cars are no longer toxic in the used market.

The price of comparable used Tesla Model 3, however, dropped seven per cent and the Model Y was down 2.3 per cent. Is that due to the Musk effect? CAP head of car valuations Chris Plumb is reluctant to ascribe it to any protest vote. ‘The main impact on Model 3 values is the increase in volume coming back into the market,’ Plumb said. ‘There’s more supply than demand.’

For Musk and Tesla’s all-important share price, volume remains a key metric. Last year Tesla sold 1.79 million cars, down one per cent on the year before. As late as 2022 Musk was telling investors the company planned to sell 20 million cars a year, double that of Volkswagen Group or Toyota, the two largest vehicle makers globally.

Last year Musk abandoned that outrageous claim and killed the planned cut-price Model 2 on which rested any slender hope of achieving it. Tesla’s promised cheaper model due this year is likely to be a stripped-out Model Y for the Chinese market, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

On the investor call on 29 January this year, Musk instead promised that robotaxis and humanoid robots would provide the revenue to justify Tesla’s segment-leading share price.

By then, however, Musk had executed his infamous Nazi-adjacent salute, which was followed by the grim January and February sales news. The share price quickly imploded – down 42 per cent this year at the time of writing. Not even a sales pitch from his friend Donald Trump (‘Everything’s computer!’) on the White House lawn could help arrest the slide.

‘We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,’ Ryan Brinkman, analyst at JP Morgan, wrote in a note to investors on 17 March.

One episode in automotive history might cause Musk sleepless nights. A spat between South Korea and China in 2017 over the smaller neighbour’s decision to install US missiles hit Hyundai and Kia sales hard as Chinese buyers responded patriotically. Diplomatic relations were quickly restored, but Hyundai and Kia numbers in China never recovered.

Tesla is not out yet. The brand has finally updated the Model Y at a crucial time, the start of deliveries of which will juice registrations in time to show upward momentum for the second-quarter results.

Musk also has seemingly unlimited powers as the President’s special advisor, giving him a wealth of possibilities to bring positivity back to the Tesla balance sheet. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) don’t like it, what can they realistically do in the face of the President’s protection?

However, even the President can’t force global electric car buyers to choose Tesla, especially with so many other worthy EV choices now available. In shooting his arm out, Musk may have fatally clobbered the goose that supplied his gold.

Images: Getty, Tesla, Polestar