Exactly - BMW is the has-been German brand, that you can buy as a 10-20 year old import. It holds no cachet and is harder to maintain and less fuel efficient than other brands with similar features.
Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals.
Functionally though - Teslas are too big and too fast for old European cities. The Renault Zoe seems to sell well but is still very expensive for mass adoption.
Teslas fit just fine into European cities, they are no larger than BMWs or a VW Passat, not to mention the humongous SUV "tanks" that seem to be so popular.
Tesla isn't that popular in Europe simply because most are not insane enough to spend 80kEUR for Model S - for that price one can easily have a Porsche or some other real luxury or sports car.
And Model 3 is very overpriced for what it is. 55k EUR? For a compact car with mediocre range? Seriously? You can have a Porsche Cayenne for that price. Or two compacts like Renault Clio or even VW Golf.
That is really only for die hard fans of the brand. Nobody else buys it here. Also, the network of charging stations is much less developed in Europe than in the US and most are paid (and pretty expensive at that!).
Status symbols are cool but most people don't have Silicon Valley salaries here.
That is a very high level observation, although I do not disagree entirely. You should not forget about countries like Norway, the Netherland and Switzerland where people really have valley-like salaries.
EV registration numbers are going thru the roof in Norway and the Netherlands.
Also, the most basic Cayenne costs 100k EUR, at least in Switzerland.
Yes - but only because of massive government subsidies for buying electric cars and installation of charge points in those countries, especially in Norway. And given that Tesla is/was pretty much the only thing on the market in that class, no wonder it is selling a lot there.
E.g. Norway has exempted electric cars from 25% VAT. That's some 20k EUR "discount" on a Model S right there. Plus it has excepted EVs from other taxes levied on gasoline and diesel cars. So no wonder that people are buying these vehicles there, they would be stupid not to.
The issue is not people buying electric cars but Tesla's claimed status as some sort of status symbol.
Heck, I would go electric myself if there was a car on the market I could actually justify buying - i.e. with about double the range of the current offerings, reasonable battery replacement costs (not costing more than the value of the car after 5-7 years - see Nissan Leaf ...) and reasonable price at the dealers (i.e. about half of what they cost today). People aren't stupid, they see the advantages of driving electric - but also can buy only as much as their wallets allow.
Cayenne prices start around 78k EUR in France, VAT and government ecology maluses included. So I doubt that 100k figure from Switzerland which has much lower VAT taxes, unless they have slapped some sort of "gas-guzzler" tax on it there (which wouldn't surprise me).
kids are also a pretty good indication. if for some reason my model 3 is not parked where it's usually parked, the kids of the neighbourhood come over and ask where the Tesla is. i'm not joking. nobody ever cared where my previous bmw mini, vw golf or land rover parked.
Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals.
Functionally though - Teslas are too big and too fast for old European cities. The Renault Zoe seems to sell well but is still very expensive for mass adoption.