General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAxios: Tesla EV sales plunged 13% in Elon Musk backlash
Nathan Bomey
1 min ago

Tesla's vehicle deliveries plunged 13% in the first quarter, compared with a year earlier, as the company faces a backlash over CEO Elon Musk's political actions.
Why it matters: The datapoint marks one of the first significant indicators that Tesla's brand reputation is suffering from Musk's chainsaw-wielding leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump administration.
Driving the news: The company delivered 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter, down from 386,810 in the same period a year earlier.
Deliveries are considered a close proxy for sales.
"This delivery number was a disaster for the bulls with continuous negativity around the TSLA brand," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote today in a research note. "We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses...they were a disaster on every metric."
Zoom in: The sales drop came despite a ramp up in incentives, such as 0% financing deals.
The company is facing a significant sales decline in key markets, such as Europe, California and China.
"The time has come for Musk....it's a fork in the road moment. The more political he gets with DOGE the more the brand suffers, there is no debate," Ives wrote. "This quarter was an example of the damage Musk is causing Tesla."
/snip

LizBeth
(11,167 posts)hatrack
(62,123 posts)Tesla doesn't release their own sales totals, but the automotive press uses state-by-state registration totals (auto registrations are public records) from companies like Polk to track what's happening. It just takes a while.
dutch777
(4,172 posts)Bengus81
(8,527 posts)tinrobot
(11,511 posts)LizBeth
(11,167 posts)uncle ray
(3,224 posts)January sales were probably high based on the previous quarter. my WAG is that march sales were probably 30-40% down which averaged out to 13% for the quarter.
littlemissmartypants
(27,068 posts)I'm guessing you don't mean wives and girlfriends so what do you mean?
mahina
(19,625 posts)Wild ass guess
uncle ray
(3,224 posts)
Response to uncle ray (Reply #12)
uncle ray This message was self-deleted by its author.
LizBeth
(11,167 posts)RJ-MacReady
(296 posts)This is catastrophic for Tesla lol. Good the sooner they are crushed into dust the better. Unless Musk sells all of his shares completely.
quakerboy
(14,319 posts)As far as i can tell it was and is a meme stock, price built more on the cult of elon and bearing very little relevance to actual earnings and growth potential. With the implosion of his reputation, the price falls.. but without him the price falls.
RJ-MacReady
(296 posts)We will see though. Tesla is now a toxic brand.
samsingh
(18,027 posts)who's still buying teslas?
tinrobot
(11,511 posts)It's not like people stopped buying EVs. They simply stopped buying Tesla EVs.
poozwah
(303 posts)Electorate
Volatility
musks batteries appear to be discharging. perhaps americans are growing weary of the politics of theatrical performance that has served the party of actors, not action for far too long. later today, we may see further degradation of the maga EV if the oligarchs vice president sticks by his pledge to raise taxes in the form of tariffs.
quakerboy
(14,319 posts)who is buying a tesla right now?
LS_Editor
(900 posts)Thoughts and prayers.