Tesla has ranked last in a survey of brand reputation in Germany, a major European car market, with a massive year-over-year collapse in its reputation. The Finnish company Reputation and Trust Analytics conducted the "Reputation&Trust 2025" study, which ranked Tesla in absolute last place out of 30 surveyed companies in Germany, with a reputation score of 2.48 on a scale of 1 to 5. Any score under 2.5 is considered "very bad."
The survey ranks companies based on eight separate factors, including governance, financial performance, leadership, innovation, dialogue, products & services, workplace, and responsibility. Tesla's reputation tanked year-over-year, dropping by a whopping -0.77 points, from a middle-of-the-pack 3.25 score to its pack-trailing 2.48 for this year. This puts it behind several companies with already-poor reputations, including Chinese online shopping company Temu, Germany's national train operator Deutsche Bahn, and the megacorp Nestlé.
The survey also covered the Nordic countries, where Tesla performed poorly in each, though it was only last place in Germany. Tesla's reputation has declined significantly in recent years in these countries, with its score dropping from 3.88 in 2021 to 2.43 in 2025. The company's anti-union behavior in Sweden is likely responsible for part of its reputation damage in other countries.
The study's findings mirror rankings from elsewhere, with Tesla ranking below Temu and UnitedHealth in a US brand reputation poll. Its poor reputation has come alongside dropping sales across the region, with Tesla seeing drastic sales declines across Europe. Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, has gotten increasingly involved in politics in recent years, both in the US and abroad, which has involved support for German neo-Nazis and agreeing with a defense of Hitler's actions in the Holocaust. This behavior has driven protests against the company, embarrassed owners, and pushed many customers away. The backlash against Musk's behavior is not surprising, as it has long been known in the business community that it is good to stay out of politics, especially when those politics clash with the politics of the majority of your customers.
