Tesla’s gross sales fell within the fourth quarter of 2025, as rising competitors and the expiration of the federal EV tax credit score continued to sap the corporate’s world ambitions. The gross sales drop has led to Tesla shedding its title because the world’s best-selling EV maker to China’s BYD, which offered 2.26 million autos final 12 months.
The disappointing gross sales report raises the query whether or not Tesla can reverse its downward fortune and obtain its targets of deploying self-driving vehicles and humanoid robots, each of which have buoyed the corporate’s valuation for a few years.
Tesla reported delivering 418,227 autos within the fourth quarter, down 15.6 p.c in comparison with the identical three-month interval in 2024. The variety of deliveries got here in under the consensus quantity from Wall Avenue, which anticipated that Tesla would supply 422,850 autos. The corporate additionally mentioned it produced 434,358 autos throughout This fall 2025, a 5.8 p.c drop year-over-year. For a direct-to-consumer firm like Tesla, deliveries are a proxy for gross sales.
For the complete 12 months, Tesla offered 1,636,129 autos, the overwhelming majority of which had been Mannequin 3s and Mannequin Ys. That represents an 8.5 p.c drop in gross sales 12 months over 12 months, and the second 12 months in a row by which Tesla recorded an annual gross sales drop. The corporate produced 1,654,667 autos in 2025, a 6.7 p.c decline 12 months over 12 months.
There’s additionally some proof that gross sales of the polarizing Tesla Cybertruck have utterly flatlined. The corporate reported delivering solely 11,642 “different” autos in This fall, a class that features the Mannequin S, the Mannequin X, and the Cybertruck. That represents a whopping 50.7 p.c lower 12 months over 12 months. (Tesla doesn’t escape precise figures for every mannequin.)
The drop in gross sales was extensively anticipated, given the wild 12 months that Tesla simply skilled. Rising competitors within the US, Europe, and China from legacy automakers pushing new, cheaper EVs put a severe dent in Tesla’s demand. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s emergence as a divisive political determine, pushing racist right-wing conspiracies on his social media platform X and heading the controversial DOGE undertaking within the Trump administration to slash world humanitarian aide applications, has alienated lots of Tesla’s historically liberal clients.
Musk himself has mentioned that the corporate is in for “a number of tough quarters” due to the expiring incentive and different macroeconomic elements. However he believes that Tesla will rebound as its AI plans come to fruition, together with robotaxis and humanoid robots. Musk predicted that fifty p.c of the US inhabitants can have entry to Tesla’s robotaxis by the top of 2025. To date, solely a handful of autos can be found in Austin and San Francisco to a restricted variety of clients.
The gross sales report comes on the heels of Musk profitable approval from Tesla shareholders for a large new pay package deal that might make him the world’s first trillionaire. Musk would want to fulfill a collection of formidable milestones to obtain the compensation, together with producing over one million robots, one million robotaxis, and creating $7.5 trillion in worth for Tesla’s shareholders.
However these shifts are doubtless years away — if they arrive in any respect — leaving Tesla to wrestle within the present setting with an getting old lineup and a battered model picture. The corporate lately launched cheaper variations of its top-selling Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y, which was presupposed to usher in a brand new period of demand for Tesla. However to this point, the newly reasonably priced autos have but to reverse the corporate’s downward slide.
