Tesla deliveries drop for second quarter amid growing backlash against Elon Musk

midian182

midian182

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What just happened? Tesla's struggles are showing no signs of improving. The EV maker just reported a drop in vehicle deliveries for the second quarter in a row, and it was even worse than what most analysts were expecting. It comes as the company struggles to rid itself of a negative image stemming from CEO Elon Musk and his actions.

Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter of 2025, marking a 13.5% decline compared to the 443,956 units a year ago. Analysts had, on average, expected deliveries to be around 394,378 vehicles, though some estimates were as low as 360,080 units – a few analysts saw the results as a success.

Another statistic is that almost all of the deliveries, 97.3 percent of them, were for Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y, its most popular vehicles. The company refreshed the Model Y this year, but that resulted in some people delaying purchases as they waited for the new version.

Tesla's shares stood at $436 on January 20, the day Trump was inaugurated. As of today, they are $317 – a 27.2% decline.

Tesla's popularity has taken a fall this year, mostly due to Musk's (previously) close relationship with Donald Trump. Sales in Europe were down 50% in April, and there have been several protests against the firm, including a dealership in Rome being set on fire, destroying 17 vehicles. An anonymous communiqué blamed "Musk's fascist project."

Ironically, Musk's very public falling out with Trump hurt Tesla even more. The president threatened to terminate Musk's governmental subsidies and contracts in June, wiping $152 billion off Tesla's valuation.

Musk backed down in that fight, but the pair were at it again this week. In addition to a veiled threat about deporting South African-born Musk, who is a naturalized US citizen, Trump suggested that budget-cutting organization Doge, which Musk led before leaving the role, could look at the government subsidies Musk's companies receive. Once again, Tesla's shares took a dive, falling 5%.

It's not all Musk's fault, though. Tesla is now dealing with increased competition from domestic automakers and Chinese giants, especially BYD.

Musk has repeatedly said that areas beyond consumer EVs will be critical for Tesla's future success. In 2024, he claimned its Optimus robot will drive the company's valuation to $25 trillion. He previously said the robot was Tesla's most important product in development, potentially bigger than its vehicle business.

There's also the robotaxi business. It recently launched in Austin, though the autonomous cars do have safety monitors in the passenger seat, a contrast to Musk's previous promise that they would launch "unsupervised, no one in the car."

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Tesla deliveries drop for second quarter amid growing backlash against Elon Musk

 
Tesla vehicles are more about fashion than functionality. If you've ever found yourself suffering from a vehicle that is too easy to refuel, too affordable to own or repair, or not controversial enough for your personal attention needs, you're gonna want a brand new Tesla, or even better, a used one.
 
Any optimism surrounding Tesla at this point can be summed up with "Consumer's are feckless *****s that will forgor about Musk/Trump antics shortly and shut up an buy Teslas" which might have been true if either Musk or Trump actually possessed the capability of shutting up and removing themselves from the public eye.

Doesn't help that the poor management we currently suffer under is content to effectively hand the next century to China through contradictory policies, poor communication, and terrible execution.
 
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People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
 
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yRaz said:
People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
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Complete nonsense. Once you take away Tesla's carbon credits (which the current administration plans to do) then the company is barely profitable. They will only be making 200-300 million profit a year without the carbon credits. I don't know where you got this made up BS about Tesla making billions even if they don't sell any cars, but it's ridiculous.
 
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Let's see:
cars which can spontaneously catch on fire,
innumerable false advertising / marketing claims lawsuits filed,
software bugs, phantom braking, range drops, battery issues, touchscreen failures,
more lemons than a fruit orchard (see Tesla Lemon Law),
a CEO who:
* pumped the tech before it was real / ready, to line his pockets,
* blatantly manipulated markets / broke numerous SEC rules,
* seemingly abandoned his businesses to go play politics,
* got kicked out of Washington,
* is now being threatened with DOGE cutting off grants / business subsidies,
* is apparently being threatened with having his immigration status revoked - lol!,
* apparently has a drug problem (ketamine et al),

... yeah, I don't think I'd ever buy a Tesla, and I don't think Tesla's gonna survive.
 
yRaz said:
People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
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I'm not entirely sure that's the case. EV's have been around since the early 1900's, and have come and gone several times since. What you might be talking about is he's the first to invest in an ecosystem, and Ford, GM and others are paying to use that infrastructure (chargers). The EV drive systems, regenerative braking, battery systems are pretty much identical to the hybrids that have been around for years, with Toyota well ahead of most on that front.
 
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But I thought that now Musk has "left" Trump, won't those on the left start to "embrace" him again LOL.
 
Has anyone noticed that fuel prices have dropped, and EV sales in general are down across the board (exception it the one or two brands that just jumped into the market).

In other words, how much of this is Musk, and how much is just the EV fad is losing steam?
 
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yRaz said:
People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
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Prius, Toyota. Why would they pay royalties.

Towns and cities of old are old infrastructure rigs and the owners hate the jocks.

You need to make actual cities of the future, better planned, from scratch. Wipe out start again. Not upgrade or polish what's basically a turd.

Ev cars are stupid. Why would you chuck 2 billion petrol/diesel cars away to make 2 billion EVs which you can't sell 2nd hand as the batteries are gimp?
Just build a better town and have rail tram and monorail.

Oh you can only do what billionaires force you to do.
 
NumberNine said:
Tesla vehicles are more about fashion than functionality. If you've ever found yourself suffering from a vehicle that is too easy to refuel, too affordable to own or repair, or not controversial enough for your personal attention needs, you're gonna want a brand new Tesla, or even better, a used one.
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Interesting take. I own 5 cars. '09 Mini Cooper JCW Clubman, '72 BMW 2002, '67 Triumph TR4A, '66 Lotus Elan S2, and a '22 Tesla Model 3. The Tesla, over the course of a year, takes far less of my time and effort to refuel per mile driven (5 second plugin when I get home). It has required, by far, the least expense to maintain (wiper fluid)... and as far as I can tell, the vast, vast majority of car buyers don't care about politics when it comes to what they or others purchase to get them around. So no... quite the opposite of your take. I suppose that's the difference between someone with experience and someone who just has an opinion about a product they have no interest in ever owning.
 
I'm wondering if they are dumping their surplus stock here in Liverpool, UK, and selling them cheap! I've keep seeing them everywhere!
 
SRB said:
Has anyone noticed that fuel prices have dropped, and EV sales in general are down across the board (exception it the one or two brands that just jumped into the market).

In other words, how much of this is Musk, and how much is just the EV fad is losing steam?
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Exactly, it’s not just Tesla that’s down. For EV’s, apparently Ford is down by 31%, Hyundai is down 4% (despite introducing the EV9), Rivian is down 23%, and Kia is down 73.5%. Many of these are changing over models from last year, but so was Tesla last wuarter. GM appears to be the exception with an increase in sales.

Although it wasn’t mentioned in the article, Tesla deliveries are up 14% and production is up 13% from last quarter. Of course this was all conveniently left out of the article because it would interfere with the narrative.
 
NumberNine said:
Tesla vehicles are more about fashion than functionality. If you've ever found yourself suffering from a vehicle that is too easy to refuel, too affordable to own or repair, or not controversial enough for your personal attention needs, you're gonna want a brand new Tesla, or even better, a used one.
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You forgot the ridiculous build quality, and the seriously lacking service network combined with atrocious shipping times for parts.

The problem is, Tesla has stalled. They life off a 7 years old Model 3 design, kinda blown up into the Model Y 5 years ago. Nothing has changed ever since.

Still 400V charging, pretty slow by today's standards. Still no V2L. And I don't care what Musk says I should feel, I DO want CarPlay too. Gotta admire the guts of this clown complaining about Apple's "walled garden", while he does the same exact thing with their own system. Oh and how about the stalks? It's okay tho, you can buy them afterwards from Enhance for a measly $439. What a premium car indeed.
 
Plutoisaplanet said:
Although it wasn’t mentioned in the article, Tesla deliveries are up 14% and production is up 13% from last quarter. Of course this was all conveniently left out of the article because it would interfere with the narrative.
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Most reports talk about YoY numbers, because those are the numbers that make sense. QoQ is not a thing, because seasonal effects skew a lot of things. It's not a "narrative", that's how finances work.

Btw. all your numbers say is that Q2 numbers were less horrible than Q1's.

A pretty huge far cry from the envisioned 50% growth each and every year till 2030 and an annual production of 20 million cars, huh? Apparently all Tesla fans forgot these prophecies since. Speaking of a narrative.
 
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yRaz said:
People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
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Which is absolutely bat **** crazy that private companies own national minerals under our land... Thats US resources, it should not be for private sector billionaires to exploit.

This is where the US domestic policy is complete garbage. We let our resources be drained so one or two guys can get rich instead of enriching the actually country that owns them.
 
SRB said:
Has anyone noticed that fuel prices have dropped, and EV sales in general are down across the board (exception it the one or two brands that just jumped into the market).

In other words, how much of this is Musk, and how much is just the EV fad is losing steam?
Click to expand...
gas was not down here over the weekend. Its around 3.30 a gallon.
 
yRaz said:
People keep forgetting that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a patent/intellectual property company and everyone who makes an EV pays royalties to Tesla. Tesla could never sell another EV again and they'd still make billions. They're also highly diversified in green energy and energy storage. I believe Tesla owns the mineral rights to one of the largest lithium deposits on the west coast and has the largest Lithium refinery in the US located in South West Texas.
Click to expand...
Right. I think some research is in order. Ford's hybrids are based on Toyota's powertrain, but way back in 2019, Toyota announced it would not charge royalties on any of its EV/Hybrid IP. It doesn't make sense to me that anyone would pay Tesla royalties when they can get alternative and likely better IP to use for free. https://foresightvaluation.com/when...ve-impacts-the-valuation-of-its-ip-portfolio/
 
wiyosaya said:
Right. I think some research is in order. Ford's hybrids are based on Toyota's powertrain, but way back in 2019, Toyota announced it would not charge royalties on any of its EV/Hybrid IP. It doesn't make sense to me that anyone would pay Tesla royalties when they can get alternative and likely better IP to use for free. https://foresightvaluation.com/when...ve-impacts-the-valuation-of-its-ip-portfolio/
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let me clarify, while Tesla does manufacture some things, they have lots of software patents, energy storage patents, charging patents. So while Tesla doesn't charge companies to use the standard Tesla connector, they do charge them a software license and that license can be as detailed or vague as the customer wants it to be. Musk didn't create Tesla because the world needed more EVs, he created it so he could have his foot in every pool in the EV supply chain. His next move with AI is to create the first self driving AI to get approval to run on public roads and then license it out to all the other car companies. In 10 years we're going to see Tesla badges on every self driving car because is Toyota wants to sell self driving cars, it's either license it from Tesla or spend the money to develop it themselves.

The idea of Tesla was to have their hand in everyone's pocket and considering he's the richest man in the world, I'd argue it's working
 
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