Trade Tuesday – Stable Ground
Happy Tuesday! We'll start with the really good news, because it deserves to be at the top: Sweden's Tesla charging network is about to grow significantly, already this week.
Over 250 fully built charging stations in about twenty locations around the country have been ready but blocked – and now, starting on Wednesday, August 19, they can start being connected. Tesla expects the Swedish Supercharger network to grow by over 20 percent, to more than 1,600 charging stations in over a hundred locations. New Tesla Centers have already opened in Jönköping and Kalmar, along with a new store and repair shop in Stockholm. For those of us who drive electric cars in Sweden, this is simply good news: shorter queues, more fast chargers, easier everyday life on the road.
The reason this is happening right now is a major and long-standing labor conflict that has now come to an end. Let's take a moment to get some solid ground and understand the big picture – from Sweden, to Europe, to the world – before we get to why this is actually a really great week to celebrate.
The background in brief
On August 13, 2026, IF Metall announced that the union was ending its strike against Tesla, after 1,021 days – the longest industrial dispute in modern Swedish history, which had been ongoing since October 27, 2023. No collective agreement was ever signed, but the conflict is now formally over.
Tesla has maintained throughout the process that it has the legal right to be outside the collective agreement, and that Swedish employees still have conditions that are equivalent or better – occupational pension, insurance, Tesla shares, increased severance pay and health care compensation. The company states that over 90 percent of employees chose to continue working throughout the conflict.
IF Metall sees it differently: they believe that Tesla systematically bought out the members who remained on strike – an estimated eighty people – and that in the end it was the lack of remaining strikers that made the conflict impossible to continue.
The voices from within
Among those who were on strike themselves, there is a more multifaceted picture than the headlines show. Several have expressed frustration with how the union has handled the finances surrounding the strike, including confusion over the taxation of the conflict compensation that created concerns about members' sickness benefit-based income and pension. Your instinct to ask where the membership fees went is, by the way, already a lively debate in Sweden: the conflict is estimated to have cost IF Metall around 100 million kronor, a significant sum even if it is only a fraction of the union's strike fund of around 10 billion kronor. As a member, wanting to see an accounting and be held accountable for strategic choices is healthy membership, in any organization.
At the same time, there is no loser here in the true sense – remaining in a conflict for almost three years against one of the world's most capital-rich companies is a form of endurance that most of us never have to test, and IF Metall's own chairman Marie Nilsson has been open about losing this particular battle.
Looking towards Europe
Sweden is far from alone in negotiating with Tesla in this way. In Germany, the IG Metall union has been in its own battle over influence over employee representation at the Gigafactory in Berlin during the year. In Denmark, the transport union 3F chose early in the conflict to support the Swedish mechanics by refusing to handle Tesla vehicles destined for Sweden – a fine example of how interconnected the Nordic labor market is, even across national borders.
And amidst all this, Tesla continues to grow in Europe. In April, the Netherlands became the first country to approve Tesla's FSD Supervised software, electric cars surpassed a quarter of all new car sales in Europe for the first time in June, and Tesla reported a sales increase of about 50 percent in Europe that same month compared to the previous year.
The global voice
Outside the Nordics, the conflict has been followed by IndustriALL Global Union, a global union federation based in Geneva that represents over 50 million workers. Secretary General Atle Høie described the outcome as a costly detour rather than a solution. From a purely financial perspective, the strike never seriously challenged Tesla – the company reported over $28 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2026 alone – and when news of the strike’s end broke, stock sentiment around Tesla also turned from cautiously negative to neutral.
So why is this still a really nice week?
Because, in the midst of a large and complex labor market issue, it actually ends up in something concrete and joyful for us: more chargers, faster, in more places, now. The Swedish Supercharger network is going from around 1,300 to over 1,600 charging stations in over a hundred locations – a journey towards a more accessible, more natural electric car everyday life throughout the country. Regardless of where you land in the union debate, it's hard not to be happy that more people can charge faster, more often and closer to home.
And are you thinking about switching to Tesla yourself, or do you know someone who is? Right now you can get free fast charging when you buy your car via my referral link:
Are you taking the opportunity to become a little more confident in your trading this week? My Options Intro for Beginners (299 SEK) is a good start if you want to understand the basics before you sit down at the screen – and an Amaelle Trade Tuesday mug and mouse pad will make you feel at home where you sit and read the courses.
A solid foundation is not about guessing right every time, but about understanding what you are actually doing. Happy Tuesday, and may your week be full of green energy.
// Mary