Tesla goes into annual minus: sales fell by another 13%
These are not the best of times for Tesla. In the second quarter of 2025, Elon Musk's company sold 384,122 cars, which is 13% less than in the same period last year. This is the second consecutive quarter of decline. To return to growth this year, Tesla needs to make up for almost 110,000 cars in the second half of the year. And this looks unlikely, to put it mildly.
What we know
Even these disappointing results were better than the worst forecasts of analysts, who expected a drop of more than 20%. Against this background, Tesla shares unexpectedly rose by 5.1% before the opening of trading in New York.
These figures directly contradict Musk's loud statements in May that Tesla had allegedly already "recovered from the downturn at the beginning of the year". It seems that the situation is more complicated than we would like. And that's not all: if the US Congress passes a new law to remove tax incentives for electric vehicles, sales could take another hit at the end of the year.
What went wrong?
Tesla hoped to pull out the quarter with an updated Model Y, which is the company's most popular model. But the competition is getting tougher: BYD and Xiaomi are making inroads in China, and General Motors is expanding its presence in the US.
In addition, the company promised to start producing new, more affordable models in the first half of the year. It promised, but didn't deliver. Analysts are already openly talking about a possible postponement of the launch.
Forecasts.
Analysts expect Tesla to end 2025 with the second consecutive annual sales decline. The forecast is 1.65 million cars, which is 8% less than last year (1.79 million).
By the way, Musk himself said in May that he was "seeing stable demand" and did not see any problems with sales. However, at the end of the quarter, he skilfully shifted investors' attention to the launch of an autonomous Tesla taxi in Austin. It's still a beta test for fans, but the shares have jumped 23% since then.
Changes in management
Amid all this, Musk took personal control of Tesla's sales and production in the US and Europe after the departure of his associate Omead Afshar. The Asian region and now global production processes are headed by Senior Vice President Tom Zhu.
It seems that Musk has decided that if the ship is sinking, he will take the helm personally. The question is whether this will be enough to keep Tesla afloat.
Source: Bloomberg
