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points by decafninja 11 hours ago | 0 comments

I see this (and similar statements) often repeated on the Internet, but it’s not what I saw during my two week trip to London and vicinity back in July. This was followed by a week in Paris.

In both London and Paris, I saw many, many Teslas, including late model Model 3 Juniper and Model Y Highland.

What I didn’t see were many Chinese EVs - which I was keeping an active lookout for. Maybe a dozen at most BYDs in each city, and 2 Jaecoos. My wife and I made a bet that I could spot at least 100 Chinese EVs during our trip. I lost - I didn’t even come close.

So what gives? The Internet told me I would see Chinese EVs everywhere. I did not.

The Internet also told me Europeans were boycotting Tesla and Elon, but I didn’t see that either.

[–] klelatti 11 hours ago

I can tell you from a - fairly prosperous town in the North of England where Range Rovers, Teslas and Porsches are very common - that BYDs and Jaecoos are everywhere.

[–] siod 2 hours ago

Those Model 3's _are_ Chinese EVs, I'm guessing this is more of an issue of you not recognising Chinese cars.

In Australia the vast majority (80%) of EVs are Chinese manufactured, with Chinese brands now accounting for 50+% of EV sales.

[–] ZeroGravitas 8 hours ago

Tesla Model 3s in the UK (and other Right hand drive countries) are made in china so you may want to revisit that bet.

[–] mattlondon 11 hours ago

I see a lot of BYDs in London (even the busses are BYDs). MGs Jaecoos some GWMs. Not as many as Teslas or EV BMW Merc VWs but quite a lot.

[–] Symbiote 8 hours ago

I can't find the interactive website, but ACEA have statistics. (I'm disappointed in HN that you have 6 replies without anyone linking the official statistics.)

Year to date in the EU + EFTA + UK, Tesla is 2.5%, BYD 2.7%, Chery 2.5%, of all new cars registered.

The interactive website allowed filtering for e.g. UK + electric cars, but maybe it's no longer available.

https://www.acea.auto/files/Press_release_car_registrations_...

[–] ZeWaka 10 hours ago

Could be depending where you were in each city. I saw dozens of BYDs in Kensington this past summer.

[–] freecodeio 10 hours ago

only car I saw consistently in paris was mini coopers, but then again I might be biased since I have a mini myself

[–] drcongo 11 hours ago

Jaecoo have had the best selling model in the UK for two or three months running now. I have no idea how you managed to lose your bet. My experience is closer to the parent post - pull into any car park in the UK and you'll count more Chinese EVs than Teslas, often you can count more Jaecoo or BYD than Tesla.

[–] lenerdenator 8 hours ago

Kind of like how the free models from China were supposed to have utterly collapsed the value propositions of all American frontier labs by now because only a fool would pay those sorts of token prices.

I suspect some of these sentiments are real, but also suspect there's a not-insignificant amount of astroturfing going on.

[–] TMWNN 10 hours ago

>The Internet also told me Europeans were boycotting Tesla and Elon, but I didn’t see that either.

And indeed, Tesla is gaining share in Europe. <https://www.kansas.com/news/business/article317450876.html>

[–] wood_spirit 9 hours ago

That only says they are improving relative to last year, not their heyday.

I searched around and found this site:

https://www.eu-evs.com/brandCharts/TESLA/GB/Volumes-Yearly

You can pick other counties, manufacturers and views etc.

My own anecdata from Nordics is that Musk was out of the news for a while but has put himself back in the bad light again last week with the Ukraine horrible behavior and there’s a bit of coverage of his funding midterms too.

Even the dramatic price deals Tesla have been offering won’t really tempt back the educated disposable income environmentally conscious early adopters who used to champion him when Tesla swept into the market with the first viable EVs.

Where I am it is Kia that has taken Tesla’s place as the go-to EV brand.

[–] TMWNN 8 hours ago

>That only says they are improving relative to last year, not their heyday.

Yes, but the Chinese EVs are a very recent thing in Europe, so Tesla is (re)gaining share versus both existing domestic and new foreign competition.

Tesla still does quite well in China.

>Where I am it is Kia that has taken Tesla’s place as the go-to EV brand.

Tesla Model Y was the world's best-selling car in 2025, <https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market-2025/> and has gained share in 2026 YTD. <https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/>

[–] throwa356262 8 hours ago

Tesla dropped their prices significantly to turn the trend from previous year.