Tesla Europe has announced plans to integrate xAI’s Grok chatbot into vehicle infotainment systems across the UK and eight other European markets. This comes as the company looks to revive decreasing sales in the region, even as Grok faces active regulatory scrutiny in Europe. The move comes despite a series of controversies surrounding Grok. The chatbot has allegedly enabled users to generate and share non-consensual deepfake explicit images of real people, including material depicting child sexual abuse. Last year, it generated and spread antisemitic hate speech across X and drew praise for Adolf Hitler, prompting earlier investigations by the European Commission.
In a post shared on the microblogging site X (formerly Twitter), the company wrote:
How Tesla’s sales took a hit in Europe
According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, Tesla’s sales of electric vehicles in Europe decreased by 27% in 2025, despite the fact that battery electric vehicles continued to gain traction in the larger European market. That year, BEVs made up 17.4% of the European market, but China’s BYD overtook Tesla in market share thanks to more inventive and reasonably priced models.
According to a CNBC report, Brand Finance said Tesla’s slide was compounded by a consumer backlash against Musk’s political rhetoric and his endorsements of anti-immigrant figures, including Tommy Robinson in the UK and Germany’s AfD party.
The company also lacked affordable new models throughout the year.
Tesla is not alone in adding chatbot features to its vehicles; Volvo has announced plans to integrate a Google Gemini-based conversational AI assistant into its EX60 electric vehicles, the CNBC report noted.
The Grok integration carries financial significance beyond the product itself. During a fourth-quarter earnings update, Tesla disclosed it had invested $2 billion into Musk’s xAI.
SpaceX subsequently acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. Before those deals, xAI had merged with social network X, and Grok had already attracted regulatory scrutiny across Asia, Australia and Europe, including investigations by authorities in Ireland, the UK, France and the European Commission.
What Tesla users have said about Grok in their cars
A Tesla owner in Canada raised concerns about Grok’s safety after it was added to her vehicle.
As CBC reported, her son used Grok to generate comments about soccer athletes, and the chatbot eventually asked the minor to send nudes. Tesla and xAI have not addressed whether they can restrict minors’ access to Grok in Tesla vehicles or moderate its outputs to be appropriate for younger users by default.
Safety concerns extend beyond content moderation. Mike Nelson, a partner at Nelson Law and an automotive safety researcher, said that while he has enjoyed using Grok in his own Tesla Model Y in the US, adding chatbot technology to vehicle infotainment systems introduces a new
for drivers. he added.
Rayid Ghani, a professor of machine learning and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, told CNBC that researchers, regulators and insurance companies should move quickly to conduct “practical evaluations” of chatbots in vehicles.
he said, without benchmarking and industry standards.
