Sheffield cars: Tesla makes announcement about Sheffield showroom amid 'plummeting global reputation'
Tesla has made an announcement about its Sheffield site amid a drop-off in sales and a damaging row between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
The electric car firm said it “no plans to close” its Sheffield site and it was “taking orders comfortably.”
Tesla registrations in the UK in April were down 62 per cent compared to the year before, with 454 cars registered.
The Tesla Centre in Sheffield is at Unit 1 Ergo Park, Drakehouse Crescent, Waterthorpe.
A spokesperson said the decline in registrations was due to having to stop producing the Model Y to start producing a new version, set to go on sale in June.
Tesla owner Elon Musk, 53, left the White House last week after leading a drive to cut government “waste, fraud and abuse”.
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He has since objected to president Donald Trump’s proposed spending bill and the pair have had a heated row on their respective social media platforms.
As a result, Tesla’s stock plummeted 14 per cent on Thursday.
The Times reports that protesters have urged customers to boycott the brand over Musk’s embrace of far-right politics in Europe and his efforts to make steep cuts in the US federal workforce and funds for humanitarian projects.
A group of Tesla investors wrote to the company’s board last week urging it to make Musk commit to a minimum of 40 hours a week managing Tesla.
The group of pension funds said the company’s “plummeting global reputation” was a “cause for serious concern,” The Times says.
The Tesla spokesperson told The Star the firm had recently invested in 12 Superchargers at Meadowhall, 20 in Rotherham and 16 at Woodall.