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British drivers are offloading Teslas in record numbers amid a political backlash against Elon Musk , the company’s chief executive.

Figures from Auto Trader showed that 4,822 second-hand Teslas were advertised on the car site in February and 4,639 in January, a significant increase on previous months.

The number put up for sale in February was up 36pc from December and up 70pc from the same month last year.

It comes as the company faces growing competition among electric car makers. Meanwhile, Mr Musk’s closeness to Donald Trump and support for far-Right European parties has divided opinion .

The number of second-hand Teslas advertised on Auto Trader has risen steadily over time, as increasing numbers of motorists who acquired new cars several years ago put them up for sale.

However, the rise in listings between December and January was the biggest month-on-month increase on record.

Second-hand Tesla prices have also fallen heavily as more owners put them on the market. A three-year-old Model 3 cost an average of £20,887 on Auto Trader in February, down 17pc year-on-year. This compares to an 8.2pc fall in like-for-like prices of all electric cars in the year to January.

Tesla shares have fallen by more than 30pc this year as it faces falling sales in multiple markets. This week, figures have shown orders falling by 76pc in Germany, 72pc in Australia and 49pc in China.

In the UK, sales of new Teslas rose by 21pc in February, although this was an unusually strong month for electric car demand as buyers pushed to avoid a tax rise on new electric vehicles (EVs). The rise was slower than wider EV sales which were up 41.7pc.

Thom Groot, of the Electric Car Scheme, which sets up salary sacrifice programmes for companies, said the company had seen interest in Tesla fall as Mr Musk’s political pronouncements had grown.

However, he said the cars were also less in demand because their perceived technological edge over rivals was shrinking. Mr Groot added that as a proportion of all inquiries, interest in Teslas had roughly halved since November’s US election.

He said: “We’ve definitely seen a big reduction in people interested in Tesla. A couple of years ago, they were very, very popular because they were the most technologically advanced brand.

“But what we’ve really seen over the last three months is sales dropping and some people looking towards other brands as a direct consequence of Elon Musk being in the news.”

A senior figure at another major car-leasing company agreed with this analysis but said it was difficult to tell how much Mr Musk’s politics were a factor versus the lack of new Tesla models for several years.

“We have had some people cancelling their orders, explicitly because of Musk’s politics,” they said. “But Teslas have actually been dropping off for the last 12 to 18 months, and a lot of that is just because they’re quite old now.

“For the same price, there’s now quite a lot of options including BMWs and even a Lexus.”

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