Since 2016, ICE vehicle sales have plunged by 31%, while EV sales have soared 10-fold.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Sales of non-Tesla EVs in California soared by 19% year-over-year in Q4 2024, and by 113% from two years ago, to a record 50,616 vehicles, surpassing Tesla sales for the first time.
But Tesla sales in California dropped in Q4 to 43,658 vehicles, the lowest since Q3 2022, down by nearly 8% from a year ago, and down by 17% from two years ago, according to vehicle registrations released by the California new vehicle dealer association CNCDA.
For Tesla, this is a mess. California is its largest market in the US. Tesla was still the #2 automaker in California, behind Toyota, for 2024, but its market share in Q4 shrank to 10.1%, the lowest since Q2 2022. Its Model Y remained by far the #1 bestseller in the state, with nearly twice as many sales as the #2 bestseller, the Toyota RAV4. But sales of the Model 3, formerly the #2 bestseller in the state, have plunged, and that’s where the big decline came from.
On an annual basis, the overall auto market in California stalled in 2024, with registrations of ICE vehicles and EVs combined dipping a hair to 1.78 million, well below the 2 million range in 2015 through 2018 (yellow in the chart below).
ICE vehicles, including hybrids and plugin hybrids, dipped by 0.7% to 1.37 million vehicles in 2024, down by 31% since 2016 (blue).
EV sales ticked up by 1.2%, despite the 11.6% drop in Tesla sales in 2024. Since 2016, EV sales have soared about 10-fold, at the expense of ICE vehicles. For the whole year, EV market share inched up to 22.0%, despite the Tesla mess.
Tesla’s global sales in 2024 fell by 1.1% to 1.789 million vehicles, according to Tesla in early January, which made us wonder at the time just how overvalued Tesla’s stock was, as its EV growth story is now over, and it’s instead running on Musk’s promises and predictions. Ah we know, the robotaxis again. But Tesla hasn’t even applied for a permit to operate robotaxis in California, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
By brand, the top market-share leaders stayed in place, but some lost share, while other gained share in 2024:
Toyota expanded its share to 16.4% (from 15.7%), but its share remains far below the 21% range in the years before the arrival of Tesla’s Model Y, which quickly became the #1 bestseller in California and ate Toyota’s lunch.
Tesla’s share, while still #2, dropped to 11.6% (from 13.0%). Honda, #3, is closing in on Tesla with a share of 10.9% (up from 9.7%). Ford’s share, #4, declined to 7.4% (from 7.7%), and Chevrolet’s share, #5, declined to 6.2% (from 6.7%):
By Model, the top market share leaders changed. The Tesla Model Y remained by far the #1 bestselling vehicle in the state, even as sales dipped a little year-over-year. But sales of the Model 3 plunged by 35%, knocking the model down into #4 position, from #2 last year.
Sales of the Toyota RAV4 and Camry both rose, and both moved up one notch, surpassing the Model 3. Sales of the Honda Civic and CR-V both rose, and they remained in #5 and #6 position respectively.
EV rankings. Tesla’s Cybertruck hasn’t made it into the top 15 of the overall models yet, far from it, but sales rose to 9,019 trucks in 2024, and so within the EV models, it rose to #5 bestselling EV. The Ford Lightning pickup (5,590) didn’t make it into the top 10 EVs.
- Tesla Model Y (128,923)
- Tesla Model 3 (53,056)
- Hyundai Ioniq 5 (16,879)
- Ford Mustang Mach-E (10,874)
- Tesla Cybertruck (9,019
- Rivian R1S SUV (8,721)
- Tesla Model X (8,585)
- BMW i4 (8,396
- Honda Prologue (6,955) made by GM as the Chevy Blazer because Honda doesn’t have an EV.
- BMW iX (6,027).
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Tesla needs to learn about making decent cars, and needs to fire its gadfly CEO who apparently has no time whatsoever to do his job and manage the affairs of this company.
MW: Tesla cars are made in America. So why is Tesla’s stock down so much?
Read at least the headline?
You can also read this which was linked in the article and provides more detailed answers:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/01/02/what-should-teslas-stock-be-worth-automaker-with-stagnating-vehicle-sales-like-gm-ford-getting-overtaken-by-competitors-losing-share-in-the-booming-ev-market/
Elon Moves With Lightning Speed to Exert Control Over Govt…
You think sales were bad in December?Ordering popcorn.
Agreed. The pain has just begun. …It will likely continue until Elmo convinces MAGA to buy EVs or he spins the TSLA auto division off separately with different leadership.
Wolf, very nice data. But where is your usually superb commentary/speculation? Why is Tesla is not doing so well in California?
I already discussed this six months ago and I didn’t want to repeat it:
Non-Tesla EV Sales +45% in Q2 YoY in California, Tesla -24%: People Have Had it with Musk’s Bullshit about California and San Francisco?
“Oh Elon, trying to wreck Tesla? Consumer boycotts work, see Bud Light. Don’t mess with American consumers!”
He is on a path of the ultimate Fxxk around and finds out mode…either he will be special enough to never find out and be the exception or on the flip side, he might find out Maria Antonette-style, judging by our gun population and the how “rational” people are in this country.
I’ve been saying for months that his real role is to play the Fall Guy for when stuff starts to blow up.
Great take Sandy. I assumed the two egomaniac children would get into a pissing contest and have a highly entertaining falling out, but I could see a patsy situation, too. Either way, before too much damage is done plz?
Having just completed the purchase of an EV for the wife, there are a lot of alternatives out there now. Many of these are better choices than anything in the Tesla line, which has stagnated.
If you consider vehicles with a 3rd seating row as we did, you have in ascending order of price:
Kia EV9
Volvo EX90
Rivian R1S
Mercedes too-expensive-something
All of which are excellent. So people who are fed up with the Elon have choices.
Were I a suspious or conspiratorially minded person I’d say that California buyers are exercising their dislike for the owner of this company…I mean the major owner…
In other news, I’m already getting news headlines of “buy now before tariffs increase home prices”. Nothing stops these people.
The world could end and it would still be a great time to buy.
“The world could end and it would still be a great time to buy” Think NAR should adopt that as their tagline in their advertisting
Maybe I could start a side hustle writing marketing copy for the NAR.
House burned down? No problem, it’s a great time to buy.
Laid off from your job? Just more time to decorate your new house – now is a great time to buy.
A loved one just died of cancer? Honor their memory with a new home, now is a great time to buy.
With a couple glasses of wine, I could do this all night.
😂
It’s good to see there’s still some slight resemblance of justice that pops up once in a while. Hopefully, this will accelerate and continue to the downside. However, at the speed of things that are happening, the only predictable thing is how fast sxxt can get worse for the most vulnerable and there are no lasting repercussions for the perpetrator, so perhaps this too will pass for him.
Quick question. All of the Tesla sales are full BEV, and come of the other cars you listed are also BEVs versus hybrid’s (which i sometimes see categorized at EVs) or PHEV plug-in hybrids (which i usually see categorized as EVs). Are all the non-Tesla sales listed as EVs all full BEVs… or are some hybrids of various forms? Many thanks for your interesting columns, Wolf!
EVs don’t have an ICE (internal combustion engine). Hybrids and plugin hybrids have an ICE under the hood with a fuel tank in the back that you fill up with gasoline at the gas station, and they’re ICE vehicles. They are NEVER classified as EVs. Sometimes they’re grouped into something called “electrified vehicles,” that is then subdivided into EVs and hybrids. But hybrids are ICE vehicles.
So yes, all non-Tesla EVs are EVs and don’t have an ICE under the hood. All ICE vehicles in the article include hybrids and plugin hybrids, anything with an ICE.
“Tesla Sales Got Crushed in Q4 in California, its Largest US Market”
BitCON “solves this.”
Certainly easier than making a great product at a price people will buy without a tax incentive.
I had liked the car, but now would never buy it. I don’t want goons going into US agencies at Elon’s directions to take over our government. It would be fine to fix it, but not to become the dictator and that’s how it looks now.
Musk is about to take a page from his X playbook and start suing customers who don’t buy Teslas. If you live in California and don’t own a Tesla, expect to be served any day now.
Of course, now that he apparently has the keys to the federal payment system, he can just start spending trillions of public dollars on his companies’ products to meet any fantastical sales projections he can dream up.
ohhh….wonder if our shadow president would also like to take over the Federal Reserve system and give himself a direct QT to his companies….I am being facetious about this but then again the possibilities of 3rd term, formation/legality of DOGE, going after Panama were all considered too far fetched and here we are…
In Markham, Ontario Canada where I live the Chinese are still buying Mercedes Benz cars instead of Tesla cars. When the Tesla car first came out a lot of them sold but after the $20,000 price drop virtually none of them of sold.
Probably time for a new sedan model, X Y S & 3 haven’t changed since they started production have they??
And yet the stock price went up the day after an absolutely atrocious earnings report.
Far from not being a growth company, it’s not even a “stable” company. Its annual sales are in decline. Its vaunted operating margin is now lower than the industry average. It’s being forced to offer massive discounts and incentives just to keep its sales from dropping further. And European sales in January show shocking declines of 30-60% in various countries so far.
But oh look! Full self driving robotaxis! And dancing robots!
Even those who call Tesla a tech or AI or whatever company is insulting the tech/AI industry. Nvidia’s PE is 45. Meta is 29. Tesla? 188! IOW, even if you think it’s going to be a world-beating tech company that’s going to dominate with a massive technological moat like, say, Nvidia, then their share price should be about a quarter of what it is right now. There is simply no industry or market or future world-changing opportunity that justifies Tesla’s current stock price. And it’s hit the ceiling on its real, much more boring market, selling cars.
All that said, there’s no way I’m shorting this company. Too many cultists willing to YOLO their life savings into this one. But I’ll be watching from the sidelines with my popcorn…