Tesla's USA sales decline: 2025 vs 2024

The Musk name has made Tesla a toxic brand so it's only going to get worse, much worse!

These US numbers may be worse than they seem considering that their higher margin model S/X/CT sales sucked, and they began offering cheaper "Standard" models of the 3/Y in Q4. They did, however, raise prices on some of their models/trims in 2025 vs 2024, although they've been doing a lot of selective inventory discounting and interest discounts, so it's hard to say whether their vehicles experienced sell through at full MSRP / interest. The reason they were able to raise prices on the S/X in 2025 while selling significantly fewer units is because they cut their production of S/X/CT by 40% y/y. That would increase per unit production costs, but those costs would be offset by the price hikes. \_\_\_\_\_ Speculative, but I wouldn't put it past Musk to have used SpaceX and xAI to purchase CT's at higher than MSRP to help boost Tesla's financials. AFAIK, there's no law against one company buying another company's products for double, triple, or quadruple the price or more. As a bonus, Tesla could always buy that inventory back from SpaceX and xAI at a steep discount ... maybe even $1 per vehicle... and re-sell it used to again boost their revenue/profit figures. This would be considered round tripping and AFAIK is considered illegal / fraud. But, given that this administration seems to be allowing their donors to get away with anything they want, it's open season for fraudsters. They can effectively do whatever they want. We already know companies like Nvidia are getting away with massive levels of round tripping and aren't being held accountable.

They couldn't even "pull forward" that much demand with the tax credit expiring.

Reformatted using the markdown editor: | Month | 2024 | 2025 | Diff | |------:|------:|------:|-------:| | 1 | 53830 | 48500 | -5330 | | 2 | 54045 | 43650 | -10395 | | 3 | 50467 | 44835 | -5632 | | 4 | 47300 | 45875 | -1425 | | 5 | 51635 | 46150 | -5485 | | 6 | 54208 | 50237 | -3971 | | 7 | 53002 | 53816 | 814 | | 8 | 53160 | 55500 | 2340 | | 9 | 53077 | 62834 | 9757 | | 10 | 53175 | 40650 | -12525 | | 11 | 51513 | 39800 | -11713 | | 12 | 57700 | 48300 | -9400 | | **Total** | **633112** | **580147** | **-52965** |

Tesla reports deliveries not sales. That could explain the discrepancy. Delivered to an abandoned mall parking lot near you.

Especially that the competition is getting much much better.

You mean especially now that they have competition.

And some Chinese EVs that might be entering the US market soon.

I'm not sure if you have heard but Tesla isn't a car company. Cars are just a side business and if you ask me they are a liability. That is why the stock is going up

India started in July ... and have sold 225 cars. There is a 100% tariff on them so I imagine it won't get much higher anytime soon.

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This is not a problem for Tesla everywhere. It impacts Europe and North America far more than anywhere else!

SpaceX I believe would be considered a related party transaction and need to be disclosed if it's 'material'. Like buying 1 or 2 wouldn't be an issue buy buying like $1B worth I would think needs to be disclosed. I could be wrong on that. NVidia is not doing round tripping on the legal definition. They aren't 'getting away' with anything as there is no crime being committed. It sure looks like round tripping to an outside observer but it technically isn't because NVidia is investing in the company for equity, and the company is buying NVidia products. In round tripping, NVidia would be giving the company $1 only for the company to turn around and buy NVidia products with that $1.

What am I missing ... 52,965+91,000+28,000=171,965 not 204,965.

They can’t use the Cybercab name now, because another company trademarked it before Tesla filed their paperwork. If I was the company that trademarked it. I’d charge Elon and Tesla hundreds of millions to buy the name off of me. lol.

Now imagine that these numbers were in a year in which they launched a refresh of their most popular product and people were incentivized due to tax credits ending. Now imagine 2026

Their vast production of factory and logistics robots that are all over the globe are currently making them absolute heaps of money and the competition that have been doing it for the past five decades are absolutely no competition in that segment. Boston Dynamics are also obviously way behind Tesla on their five year old Spot and soon-to-be released Atlas which is demonstrated to work in fully autonomous mode.

Not until Trump is gone

I mean we've had the Leaf and the BMW i3 for a long long time 🤭

They are down in England HOWEVER the MY and M3 are still the number 1 and number 2 best selling EVs in the country. Go figure.

I wonder how many of these are deliveries to xAI, SpaceX and Boring.

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Fair point! It's upsetting that what it comes to but these are the times we live in

Yuck... none of that "Tesla is the only choice" crap again. What models have gone away? The F-150L? I don't see the superchargers going away anytime soon, but they could certainly degrade and Tesla could certainly slip on maintenance. Or maybe Tesla just raises prices. If that happens, then it'll help to create demand for other charging networks who have started using NACS plugs, or where adapters are now available. For years I've pointed out that Tesla's charging strategy was meant as an anti-competition policy, meant to try and stop sales of other vehicle brands and stall growth of competing charging networks, forcing people in the US into buying Teslas. This didn't work in Europe because of the government pushing a standardized plug, and tbh I haven't paid attention to what went down with charging in China, but Tesla wasn't able to lockdown the market there either. It's pretty funny because I spent years banging the table that the US government should have gotten rid of tax credits and regulatory credits, and should have simply taxed carbon. As such, I think plug in hybrids would have taken off, and likely resulted in far more sales of electrified vehicles by now than we ultimately got. As it stands, all of the pickup truck companies all seem to be looking to reverse course on EV trucks and jump into the PHEV game, as they should have done from the get go. The real travesty of Tesla's success is that they pushed America away from the powertrain type that they should have jumped into with both feet, Plug in hybrids, and allowed electric powertrain and battery tech to mature first, before jumping into full EVs and a properly developed universal charging plan for the nation.

I really wish states would allow all OEMs to sell direct. Honestly the main appealing part of buying a Tesla, Lucid or Rivian is not having to deal with a traditional franchise car dealer.

From what I've read, reports are stating that SpaceX bought over 1000 CTs. As to whether they need to disclose them in their financials and how much they paid for them, I'm not sure how that works with privately traded companies. They don't have to release their financials publicly, but I imagine they do still have to report their financials to their shareholders. What you suggested Nvidia is actually doing and what the law says they can't do are essentially the same thing. They're giving a company money to then turn around and buy their products from them in order to pump their revenue. So long as those "investment" companies don't instantly go bankrupt, Nvidia's financials look great. As soon as the bubble begins to pop... not so much.

You're correct. Strange, I must have forgotten to clear the calculator before adding the numbers up.

I've been demo-ing a Wagoneer S for the last few days and it's fantastic. I'm glad I didn't get one before the software updates, but at the current prices it's tempting. I had been waiting for a Recon.

I believe the UK is their largest market in Europe, and since their total sales are only distributed between two models, it's easy for them to hit the top of the individual model sales rankings. When you look at brand sales as a whole, they're usually much further down the list. Other OEMs don't care so much about individual model sales, they care about total sales. Tesla stans really buy into the "best selling model" craze because it's one of the few stats Tesla is consistently topping the charts on. It's all but meaningless when looking at full brand financial performance.

Those fucking Nazis need to open up their black hearts to the brand… unless… they are gasp - too poor to afford a Tesla?

Understood but they still have the best selling EV, and the second best selling EV, and by a huge margin. So it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s not as much cheap money floating around in 2025 compared to 2024, so you’d expect sales to be down as household budgets are tightened.

SpaceX definitely doesn’t have to report anything. It would be on the Tesla side. Nvidia is definitely juicing earnings from what they’re doing, I’m just saying “round tripping” is a criminal charge, not slang. What NVidia is going is not criminal the way they’re doing it even though like I said, the end result is very similar.

Exactly. I'm in an area where every other car used to be a tesla. You don't see anyone driving the new models post-refresh. Everyone still driving one has an older version and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.

Deliveries. Not sales. Delivered to a mall parking lot.

Eh, it happens. I thought i was losing my mind cuz no one else pointed it out. I checked my math multiple times to assure myself. Thanks for taking the time to breakdown the numbers like that.

Improved slightly after he removed his face from the WH (still stealing all our data). Then got demolished with Trump's economy slowly but steadily coming to full fruition. You're a moron if you still support this trash.

And in every other markets they have cheap Chinese EVs that Tesla cannot even remotely compete with.

Their sales in the US primarily picked up after the the cancellation of the federal EV tax credit was announced as part of the BBB, and then passed in July. This caused demand pull forward, and come October and the loss of the credit, sales fell off a cliff. I'm surprised sales have held up as well as they have in Q4 after prices on Tesla vehicles popped by $7500 overnight.

Not really the case in the US since Tesla doesn't use dealerships, so all those cars in mall parking lots are still in Tesla's possession. There are some dealer networks in Europe that sell Teslas that can be stuffed with inventory and counted as deliveries. Not sure about China, but then China seems to have all sorts of means that OEMs have used to fraudulently represent their numbers.

Tesla's sold SpaceX and xAI and other Musk companies Tesla vehicles in the past, and I can't say that I've ever seen those sales numbers and the prices they sold those specific vehicles referred to in their financials. I guess they could be in there somewhere, but no one's ever pointed them out in any articles, and I don't usually comb that deep through their financials. It's not really the number of sales I'm curious about, since I think we have a decent idea of how many vehicles were sold, but rather the prices those companies paid for the vehicles.

I'm not sure why you reiterated the first and second best selling models point since I just mentioned why it isn't an important metric and is generally used as nothing more than a Tesla stan talking point to hype the company, because it sounds impressive without actually being so. UK's overall vehicle sales increased by over 3.5% in 2025 vs 2024, and EV sales increased by over 24%. Tesla's sales, meanwhile, declined in the UK by 10% y/y. So, while the EV market saw rapid growth overall, Tesla's sales shrunk. That isn't a good sign. Their UK sales decline wasn't as bad as many of the other European nations, but is still pretty bad. There could be any number of reasons why Tesla's UK sales haven't seen as sharp as a decline as the rest of Europe. Maybe it all comes down to that rapid growth in EV sales in the region. Maybe it's a matter of RHD EV availability. Maybe Tesla was running discounts, or the UK government was running EV incentives. Maybe the UK just doesn't care as much as the rest of Europe (excluding Norway) about Musk's nazi rhetoric and far right support, given that the UK seems to have a fairly sizeable chunk far right supporters. I don't know enough about that market to give a definitive answer, but it doesn't really matter. Tesla's sales in the UK did see a fairly steep decline even as EV sales increased.

….because it’s the difference between fact and opinion. Even with a massive decline, which I’m not disputing, they still have the best selling EV. And the second best selling EV. By a huge margin. That is a fact. Whether you think it’s relevant or not is your opinion.

What do you mean by Tesla doesn't use dealerships? My friend bought one a few months ago from a Tesla dealership in Cali. There are 2 Tesla dealerships within 20 miles of my home.

Those are technically store fronts, not dealerships. Dealerships are 3rd party privately owned companies / franchises that buy vehicles from an OEM, removing the vehicle from the OEM's inventory and books, and then sell them to customers. Tesla building up inventory at their store fronts isn't considered a sale and the vehicles remain in their inventory. What Tesla is doing saves money by not using 3rd party dealership middle men, allowing them to keep more of the proceeds of the sale and service costs, giving them a boost in their gross vehicle margins, but it also puts them at risk in the event that sales slow down and they can't offload some of their excess inventory to dealerships, who share in the losses of the unsold inventory. Tesla controls for this to a point by being able to fine tune their production faster and to a larger degree than other companies on account that their overall sales are lower, they have more vertical integration of their supply chain (and fewer parts in their vehicles), and their employees aren't unionized so Tesla can more rapidly lay off workers. If we were to experience another massive recession where car sales tanked, Tesla would likely be impacted worse than the other OEMs on account that they'd get stuck carrying more inventory. Tesla's ability to cut production quickly, rather than maintaining production and holding extra inventory, also comes with the negative side effect of lower efficiency / higher cost production while they're running their plants at lower output.

After you said it the first time, I stated why this "best selling model" metric is meaningless in terms of overall brand performance. You for some reason reiterated it again as if I didn't say anything. I'll also note, you said it twice without of course giving any reason why it's an important metric. Why is important to a company's financial performance? Let me make it more simple. If Tesla only has two high selling models , and other OEMs each have 10... then to buy a Tesla means you're likely buying one of two models... whereas if you opt for another brand, you're buying one of ten models. If Tesla got 2 million sales, with even distribution between the two models, that means each model is selling 1 million apiece... a high number putting both models at the top of the sales charts. If Brand X got 5 million sales, with even distribution between their 10 models, then each model got 500,000 apiece... not so high on an individual model basis. Which company is doing better financially? The company that only sold 2 million vehicles, or the company that sold 5 million? The fact is, Tesla has rested on their laurels by restricting the number of vehicle models they offer. They did this to save money on R&D and factory tooling. Early in 2021, Musk and Tesla were gleefully taunting the industry by claiming they'd experience 50% CAGR in vehicle sales from 2020-2030. They sold 500,000 vehicles in 2020, so that means by 2025 they should have been selling over 3 million per year (they only sold \~1.6 million in 2025) and they should have been heading towards 20 million annual sales per year by 2030. And the irony is that they used this CAGR claim, and reiterated all the way through the end of 2023... 2.5 years... in order to pump their stock value on account that rapid vehicle sales growth justifies a significantly higher share price. As it turns out, they're nowhere near their own growth guidance, and in fact their vehicle sales have declined for two straight years. Sure, they can flaunt the high sales of their two models, tout that they're the best selling models in a given region, but the fact is, their overall sales are in decline. THAT is what matters. Individual model sales in general don't matter when it comes to a company's financials. Total sales, total revenues, total margins, and total net income are what matters. Touting a single model's sales is nothing more than a fanboi talking point. Another quick point. If Tesla were to add a new model that sat between the model 3 and model Y in terms of vehicle size class, chances are a chunk of the model 3 and a chunk of the model Y demand would go to that new model, distributing the demand between 3 models instead of two. Let's say total sales bumped up to 2.5 million. Suddenly each model is only selling 750k units, and none are on the top of the sales charts. Given that Tesla no longer has any vehicles on the top of the sales charts, does this mean Tesla's performance is worse than it would have been without this third model? Of course not... they'd be selling 25% more vehicles with the third model than without!

It’s because it’s a proxy for demand strength and manufacturing efficiency, two things that directly affect financial performance. Acting like it’s meaningless just because it isn’t the only metric is… convenient. When Tesla has two models dominating global charts, that means they’re concentrating volume on fewer SKUs. That’s not a trivia flex that’s lower per unit cost, simpler supply chains, faster production ramps, and higher margins per vehicle. You know, the stuff that actually shows up on income statements. Selling more vehicles doesn’t automatically mean doing better financially unless you assume all vehicles are equally profitable, which they absolutely are not. That’s a pretty big assumption to just breeze past. As for the 50% CAGR comments from Elon Musk yeah they were aggressive. Welcome to literally every growth company ever. Yes, adding a model could increase total sales while lowering per model rankings. Exactly. Which proves that model ranking alone isn’t the whole story but it doesn’t make it irrelevant either. Rankings show competitive strength within a segment, not total corporate health. Both can matter at the same time. Wild concept. So no, people pointing out best selling models aren’t “fanbois.” They’re highlighting demand concentration and execution, things you don’t get by just counting SKUs and calling it analysis. And just as a side note by repeating “let me make it more simple” while flattening everything into oversimplified hypotheticals doesn’t make the argument clearer it just makes it louder and you come across quite obnoxious.

The real proxy for demand strength is... demand. We can see this demand by looking directly at their overall vehicle sales. The real metric for manufacturing efficiency is ... gross vehicle margins, albeit that also include price of labor, materials, tooling, etc. If you're suggesting that having fewer SKU's is improving their manufacturing efficiency, well that's obviously true versus having a lot more models, but then why isn't it translating into increasing gross vehicle margins... or even overall corporate margins? In fact, the opposite is true, both are declining. Tesla has two of the top models in the world. Has that stopped their gross vehicle margins from declining, even hemorrhaging the past few years? Again, the whole "top model" thing is just stock pumping drivel based on a metric that doesn't matter. Yes, it's a "metric"... but it's a fairly pointless metric. Given Tesla's waning performance, it's the only seemingly shining metric they have to help pump the stock, which is why it's so often used. Not because it's actually important... but because it looks important. It sounds impressive without actually being impressive. I didn't say the metric of "best selling vehicle" isn't important because there are other metrics. I said it's unimportant because the meaning of that metric is all but meaningless. It's literally a pointless metric. It's like saying "Hey everyone, I had the most words in my term paper"... when it was one of the worst papers in the class and was graded as such because all of the words and reasoning used were rudimentary. Most words is a metric... but is ultimately a weak metric in terms of overall writing performance. Overall financial performance is what matters, and we have all of the metrics we could possibly want for that in their publicly available financial statement. We can determine their rate of sales and revenue growth by, get this... looking at sales and revenue growth. Cool, they have the stop selling models still. What does that say about sales and revenue growth? Generally nothing, it's just a pointless metric. It doesn't say that sales have declined. It doesn't say by how much. It doesn't say whether ASPs changed and what the margins of the vehicles are. It doesn't say what Tesla needed to do to retain such high sales of those two models. etc... And in terms of which metrics are important or not... best selling vehicles or total vehicle sales... I'll give the winner to the companies doubling Tesla's overall sales every day of the week with relatively comparable margins. Yet, their stocks are valued at like 5% of Tesla's. Think about how crazy that is. Now don't get me wrong, I've participated in the EV and EV stock communities for some time now. What's pretty consistent with Tesla stock traders is that Tesla is their largest and maybe only holding. As such, they tend to get emotionally invested in the company, hoping to strike it rich, with the mindset that they're part of the team and the company can do no wrong. This happens with a lot of novice traders, TBH. They really don't know how to read the financials. They really don't understand the difference between a meaningful metrics like a brand's total sales, revenue, and growth thereof, and meaningless metrics like "best selling model". They don't understand that stock prices are more based on guidance than past performance. They push this particular metric, best individual model sales, because again, it's one of the few shining metrics for the company, and ironically it's all but meaningless. Another quick example, how does Tesla grow their sales for their two models, which are already seeing waning sales? Their only real option is to cut prices, and thus cut margins. The profitability of each unit declines. Generally, this is why other OEMs tend to release new models. To keep demand growing, or at least stagnating! If you only care about the metric that "model Y is the top selling model"... then what does that actually tell you? What detail does it give you in valuing Tesla as a company? \_\_\_ As to the 50% CAGR.. typically when a company or analysts guide a specific massive future growth expectation, the stock prices it in. When they fail to meet the guidance, don't even come close to it, the market generally re-prices the stock to meet the new expectations. The irony with Tesla is that re-pricing from failed expectations often doesn't occur. It's actually wild. Part of that may be cult like shareholders who basically have their entire savings rolled into Tesla stock. Part of it is definitely a manipulated stock with subpar real performance being weighted so heavily in index and tech funds. There is of course the constant hyping of vaporware to keep shareholders locked in, while consistently pushing out false timelines by a year at a time. Suddenly we're 10 straight years on from FSD being one year away.

Ok are you dead serious? What revenue does Tesla have other than cars

I can’t figure out why Tesla attempted to enter the Indian market if they weren’t going to bother cutting a deal to avoid tariffs. 100% tariffs would be prohibitive most places, much less a price-sensitive market with established domestic EV competitors like India. Did sales just point at a map and say “are there lots of people there?”

You ask that question like Tesla/Musk's plan these past few years hasn't been 'Keep lying and pray the market doesn't find out Tesla sales have cratered and none of the promised features are real'

Well what is Tesla/Musk selling then?

Vaporware to idiots. Very profitable.