Tesla (TSLA.US) rages at Swedish trade unions: car owners are on strike because of long queues for charging in the winter

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Tesla (TSLA.US), the global electric vehicle leader, blamed the chaos at Swedish supercharging stations on a long-term local trade union strike. According to media reports, Tesla's management team accused a supercharging station in Sweden of lining up a mile-long line of electric vehicles on a busy holiday weekend, and emphasized that the culprit was the local trade union organization.

According to local media reports, the Swedish town of Malen is located near several popular ski resorts in the country. It was first affected by the “Tesla supercharging station queue storm” in Sweden on Sunday. More than 150 Tesla owners had to wait in line for electric cars to be charged in the severe cold of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the region.

Max de Zegger, head of Tesla's charging network, made an official response to the queuing phenomenon. He pointed out in a post that Swedish trade unionists had been on strike for 14 months because Tesla refused to sign a collective salary negotiation agreement with workers in its factory. These Swedish Tesla workers who signed the union agreement have already initiated a long-term strike.

“Had it not been for the prolonged strike initiated by Swedish workers, Sweden's more than 100 supercharging sites could have been full of energy in this cold winter, providing Tesla owners with a strong supercharging network.” De Zegger from Tesla wrote in a post by X. “Tesla supercharging stations are critical electric vehicle infrastructure, especially during peak travel seasons like this.”

According to information, since October 2023, Tesla has faced joint mass strikes and protests by more than a dozen trade union organizations in the Nordic region. Over the past year or so, Swedish terminal unloading, truck delivery, mail services, garbage collection, and the loading and unloading of electric vehicles at the country's ports have all been hampered by numerous strikes. In this high-welfare Nordic country, where more than 90% of workers have signed trade union agreements, there is currently little evidence that either party will choose to retreat.

When media reporters contacted Tesla's representative in Sweden, the representative declined to comment. Since Trump won the election in November, Tesla's stock price has risen as much as 70%.

Judging from the annual data, Tesla's total delivery volume in 2024 was 1.79 million vehicles, down 1.1% year on year, lower than the 1,806 million vehicles predicted by 19 analysts in LSEG statistics. It also marks the first time in Tesla delivery history that annual level drop in deliveries has been recorded. However, in 2024, Tesla's cumulative sales volume in the Chinese market increased by 8.8%, setting a record high sales volume of more than 657,000 vehicles in the Chinese market, and performed extremely well in China's fiercely competitive market.

In recent years, European electric vehicle subsidies have been drastically reduced, US inflation continues to be high, and the market is shifting to cheaper hybrid cars and traditional fuel vehicles under the pressure of high interest rates, as well as intense competitive pressure from new global electric vehicle forces, all causing a huge drag on Tesla's global delivery volume.

In terms of delivery expectations, although deliveries in 2024 fell short of market expectations, the Wedbush analyst team led by senior analyst Dan Ives is confident in Tesla's ability to increase delivery growth in 2025. Wedbush expects Tesla's target delivery growth rate of 20%-30%. Additionally, the agency expects Tesla to launch a lower priced electric vehicle model in early 2025, which will be a potential catalyst to increase overall Tesla electric vehicle deliveries.