Are they still selling any Cybertrucks?
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
The total number of vehicles Tesla delivered to its customers around the globe in Q1 2025 plunged by 13% from the already crushed levels a year ago, to 336,681 vehicles, the lowest since Q2 2022 (red in the chart).
Deliveries of the Model 3 and Model Y plunged by 12.4% from the already crushed levels a year ago, to 323,800 units, the lowest since Q2 2022 (blue).
Deliveries of “other” models – Cybertruck, Model S, and Model X – collapsed by 24.3% year-over-year to just 12,881 vehicles, the lowest since Q1 2023, before Tesla even started producing the Cybertruck (the green line at the bottom of the chart).
In trying to explain the plunge in deliveries of the Model Y, its bestseller, Tesla said in the press release: “While the changeover of Model Y lines across all four of our factories led to the loss of several weeks of production in Q1, the ramp of the New Model Y continues to go well.” So there’s always hope.
Tesla said in 2023 that it expects to be able to ramp Cybertruck production to 250,000 units in 2025. So this is 2025, and deliveries of “other” models have dropped to a puny 12,881 vehicles, including Model S and Model X, below where they had been before Cybertruck production had even begun. And there were no model changeovers to blame. So Tesla may be able to ramp up production of the Cybertruck to 250,000 in 2025. But it has to sell them too.
Musk said in 2023 that the Cybertruck will not be material to Tesla’s financials until 2025 or beyond. In Q1 2025, it will be a drag.
Cybercab not yet. Oh, we’re still all eagerly waiting for Tesla’s Cybercab, which Musk has been promising for years, a fully autonomous vehicle without even a steering wheel. Tesla doesn’t even yet have the permits to let its Cybercabs drive around in the wild, much less taking paying customers.
But Waymo, a division of Alphabet, is years ahead of Tesla. Driverless Waymos have been taking paying customers for a year-and-a-half around different cities. In San Francisco, a notoriously difficult and congested city to navigate in, they’ve become a must-do tourist attraction.
Cruise, the other driverless-taxi operator that had been taking paying customers, ran into trouble after some egregious mistakes and a coverup by the company of those mistakes, and was shut down by its owner, GM, and its technology was incorporated into GM’s autonomous vehicle technology. So the Cybercab is going to bail out Tesla?
Musk is crushing one of the best-known consumer brands ever, after so successfully bringing it to the top. We watched this peculiar phenomenon beginning to unfold in California starting in 2023. The state is Tesla’s largest market in the US. Californians were huge fans of Tesla, a company founded in California, and the only automaker to have an assembly plant in California.
We get vehicle registrations data in California on a quarterly basis, so we can look at the gory details. Mid-2023 was when Tesla’s potential customers in California turned sour on Musk, and therefore on Tesla, after the BS he’d been piling on them, and they bought other EVs. Then in Q2 2024, Tesla sales plunged 24% year-over-year, while non-Tesla EV sales soared 45%. And we wondered at the time in the headline: People Have Had it with Musk’s Bullshit about California and San Francisco?
Then in Q4 2024, as Tesla sales plunged and non-Tesla EV sales continued to soar, Tesla was surpassed by non-Tesla EVs. This is what happened in California through Q4 2024 by registrations (Q1 2025 registrations will be released later this month, and they will surely be entertaining):
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Not shocked that the guy who discarded the widely recognized Twitter brand name would also discharge the Tesla badge. It’s probably not a good time to name your baby Elon either.
Tesla will be rebranded in 6-12 months…just a hunch…
Last Friday after the close, elon restructured his X holdings, folding it within xAi, and freeing it from the debt that was secured by Tesla stock. The xAi holders were diluted and now own Twitter. He knew the delivery data coming was dire and it was only a matter of time before TSLA more properly reflected a cratering car company. They claimed 2 million preorders and 500k annual cybertruck production, and so far have sold around 40k units – a gigaflop as they say. They issued debt last fall to raise cash and no longer generate a cash cushion from preorders that are delivered later. They are carrying huge inventory and the low sales mean they won’t be able to sell as many carbon credits, which were a large piece of the profit pie (as were unrealized Bitcoin holdings in Q4).
Too much spending has become an existential threat to the US survival as a great power. In peacetime with full employment, we are now spending more on interest payments than the military. No world power in history has taken this course and remained one. Sixty percent of our national debt has been borrowed in the past 15 years. Musk is sacrificing some of his business for the betterment of his adopted country. We should all hope that he succeeds.
That does come to mind, doesn’t it?
Completely off topic Wolf, so I apologize. I’ve been reading so much about tariff impacts from lots of economists. One camp says essentially the U.S. Consumers will pay for it through price increases. Another camp disagrees. I would love to read an article on your take of the true impact of tariffs for the average joe. Tariffs were sold as a sort of magical bullet, perhaps it is so, but maybe it is not. Would love to read an article here where you thought about it, and could share. Thanks, and sorry if this was off topic.
They’re all here:
https://wolfstreet.com/tag/tariffs/
start with this one:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/01/13/some-basics-about-u-s-tariffs-and-what-trumps-new-economic-team-said-about-tariffs/
then this:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/02/03/what-trumps-tariffs-did-last-time-2018-2019-had-no-impact-on-inflation-doubled-receipts-from-customs-duties-and-hit-stocks/
And make sure you read my comments below the article, they have lots more details.
spot on. all the folks who lambaste Elon have not suggested other means to achieve the necessary adjustments in the US economy. frankly, it’s tiresome
They have, such as Susan Collins, the republican Senator from Maine. Doing it the way nearly all governments do it, the way the US did it in the 90s, through cutting departmental spend and striving for efficiencies, not appointing one person with no involvement in government to burn as he likes.
Susan Collins??
You can’t be serious. Sheesh.
It’s been 30 years since any meanful reforms and the political landscape is very different than it was then. Everyone seems to agree there is fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government and that it should be removed, but the two sides haven’t been able to agree how.
So, we get the sledge hammer. They will cut too much in some areas, but those areas of need will be backfilled. No big deal
All large organizations have waste, fraud, and abuse, so the federal government is no exception. Absolutely no one has been able to point to date showing that there is more of it in government than there is in any other business, other than blind belief in a sanitized and theoretical version of capitalism and 50 years of anti-government pro-business propaganda from a well-coordinated media campaign.
The next rigorous comparative study of waste fraud and abuse between government and business will be the first.
Numbers, the DOGE cuts that seem to be so controversial aren’t pertaining to privitization of government functions. They are cutting redundant employees or employees of programs no longer a priority of the current adminstration.
That’s why the debate has become almost religious, it’s about the roles and responsabilites of the Federal Government. Should the Federal Government even be involved? Should it be handled on the State level? Should the US tax payers pay for it? etc…
Interesting way to put the destruction of HHS. No drug research, no disease prevention, no ensuring food and drug safety. No more help for older and poorer people to pay their energy bills. Making experts in infectious diseases decide between quitting with no severance or taking a completely unrelated position in Indian Health Affairs on a reservation in South Dakota was a particularly efficient and not at all spiteful way of handling it.
I guess it is technically true that you could debate whether the US government should do those things. Perhaps we should have that debate?
As a matter of fact, national polls on many of DOGE’s activities reveal that they are massively unpopular.
A few examples:
Laying off more than 40,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): 52% oppose, 35% support
Laying off 10,000 workers from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): 62% oppose, 27% support
Laying off more than 80,000 workers from the Department of Veterans Affairs: 67% oppose, 17% support
Canceling federal funding for studies on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases: 67% oppose, 21% support.
Numbers :
Try thinking for yourself instead of being a parrot.
“Dragon” = “shower”
We already did this in 2011-2015. The Department of Defense cut 16% of its expenses during this period. Remember sequestration, where agencies had to come up with cuts and work them through their systems after several years? It worked. Musk+Trump are proving to be incompetent – The emperor has no clothes. All their bombast works in the private sector, raising money from investors, but in the public sector they can only hide behind their words.
I agree we should cut expenses, I don’t agree to break our laws to do it.
Or maybe we could do it the way it was done back in the 1940’s, 50’s and 1960’s. Tax the top 10% at the same rates (adjusted for inflation) as we did back then.
I see no reason for a minimum wage earner to pay a greater percentage of their income than a Billionaire.
“I see no reason for a minimum wage earner to pay a greater percentage of their income than a Billionaire.”
Is there an actual example of this happenning, ever?
Tax revenue data suggests otherwise
May not be technically true, but there’s this:
According to ProPublica’s analysis of IRS records, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018. Between 2014 and 2018 his wealth grew by $13.9 billion, yet he paid just $455 million in federal income taxes, a rate of only 3.27%.
The tax rate for someone making $15/hr is about 5%.
If you include SS and Medicare taxes it’s worse, since for a low income earner this adds another 7.65%, but adds a miniscule amount to what Musk pays because of the cap (less than 0.1%).
I think it is funny that people can put the word “just” in front of $455mm “yet he paid just $455 million in federal income taxes”. I also think that it is funny (but a little bit sad) how many people don’t understand the difference between “wealth” and “income”…
Numbers:
Numbers do lie especially when conflating an increase in weath with an increase in income.
An increase in weath doesn’t turn into realised income until an event actually converting that wealth into income.
Wonder why you aren’t bitching about Buffet+ the master of increased wealth with little income.
Golden Dragon
There is plenty of wealth that is realized without it needing to be turned into income. Having $100,000 in treasuries is wealth whereas income is only the amount generated in interest per year, as an example. That said, plenty of people count wealth that is highly variable, such as stock markets, which of course, is not income, outside of dividends they generate. People are try to address wealth inequality by wage increases which is another faulty belief as while the money helps it rarely allows for any generational catch-up.
In short, both terms are misused in many ways, and guessing a mixture of ignorance and willful manipulation
Sure they have. Tax the rich like the us did in the 60s and 70s when the top tax rate was circa 90%
Are you that brainwashed? Turn off Fox News.
He’s the biggest welfare CEO in the world taking billions in govt subsidies for all his companies.
He could care less about govt spending or the debt. He just wants more power, influence, and money.
It’s not even Fox News anymore. It’s social media. Social media has cooked people’s brains completely by providing algorithmic feeds full of grifters and propaganda. And they’ll fight you tooth and nail about whatever it is they’re consuming all day long like it’s their own ideas as their feeds become more and more extreme. That’s why people are in completely different realities now and we can’t communicate.
Yeah agreed, it’s incredibly frightening and depressing at the same time. I still feel like with some honesty and intelligence, you can get to the facts.
I used to love DJT and Elon.
I used to be a Republican.
I used to be all about free market capitalism.
Data and policy changed all this.
However I change based on new and better info.
Others can too. It’s hard, no doubt, but it’s necessary when one is honest with one self.
Spot on Jon! 500 hundred thumbs up to your comment (if it were possible in this comment section). Musk and Trump have NEVER done anything good for anyone else except themselves. Why would anyone believe they would start to now?
This!
TJ: Duly noted.
Lots of Tesla experience here and lots of cars in general experience here (6decades of driving experience). Teslas are AMAZING automobiles. I would never own anything else.
Elon didn’t start Tesla and today remains a minority owner(12%). The media makes too much of everything. This too shall pass.
Agreed… but here is what makes me wonder a little bit… seems to me “Wolf” has shown his true colors; leaning left. I will continue to read but the beer mug at the bottom; well, I ignore it now.
One of the great tragedies in automotive history is the politization of a vehicle powertrain.
” … seems to me “Wolf” has shown his true colors; leaning left.”
Wow, all this amazing data-driven sharp content, day after day, month after month, year after year, and you run across one data point, one characterization you choose to see a certain way, and start thundering like this?
He has an automotive industry background, as he’s told us. Usually when he discusses autos, he’s spot on. I personally own 5 vehicles (not including family vehicles that others drive) and have a lift in my garage to work on them. He’s right, politicization of drivetrains is idiotic. The right hates EVs, oh wait, now they love them. The left is all for them and throwing subsidies at rich people to buy them, ignorant to the effect on the market (too much EV-development, not enough PHEV and BEV development). It’s more like cult behavior than anything else driving it, and thankfully, any time anyone starts musing about cars from a political perspective and shows their ignorance about them, real auto aficionados can pick it out in a second. There are very few people that have a good knowledge of the industry, drivetrains, technology and government intersection, and most of these people, Wolf included, bemoan stupid partisan comments about cars.
I don’t know if Wolf leans left or right (as with most people who think for themselves it probably depends on the issue), but providing excellent data and his honest opinion is enough for me. Time to help support the site again!
I dunno… He seems pretty supportive of the current government to me. But though I disagree with him on some things, and even some of his conclusions, there’s no denying that the man knows his facts and I greatly admire that. It’s why this site is the first I read every morning.
Respectful disagreement is good so long as both parties are informed, thoughtful, and willing to be wrong.
If two people agree, one of them is redundant.
He is CEO for crying out loud.
Yet Tesla sales are down around the whole world..
I was offered a free Tesla from a relative. Not sure I’ll take it. The future of this company is seriously in doubt at this point. They over-produced 30k+ cars that are filling up lots. They are a shrinking car company. Tesla won’t take cybertrucks as trade-ins, nor will anyone else. You can drive it around as long as the panels don’t fall off but it has zero resale value. Resale has also been destroyed on the other models. This brand is toast.
Elon is committing crimes by cutting services without congressional approval while the repubs are increasing the debt ceiling by 4.5 trillion. He’s giving his own companies massive welfare while Tesla pays no taxes. He’s back to illegally buying votes, this time in Wisconsin. Anyone who thinks his customer base is coming back is totally delusional.
You were offered a free car and you’re thinking about not taking it?
Musk owns some 17% of Tesla, he’s not the owner. What about all those other investors taking a bloodbath as the owners wealth disappears? Oh, well serves Elon very well with his political stand, now doesn’t it.
Keeping politics out of business has been a democratic and conservative value for decades, at least in people’s flapping jaw
100 yrs ago old Ford was a raging anti-semite. Granted that was then…but there is a history of holding CEOs products accountable for their beliefs (or in the case of Ford, now). Well in this case I don’t really see the connection other than pure hate of the hard left against this particular CEO. I mean look no further than what happened to United Health CEO. This is bad for our country. The so-called progressive faction of the demo party have gone rouge, they are no better than the fringe right. Sorry for this type of rant on this venue, but having lived in SF all my life and WSOMA for 23 yrs I have seen the fringe wings of america tearing us all apart, the centre cannot hold (homage to Yeats)
Can’t edit my comment, but here corrected, “or in the case of Ford, not)
what is WSOMA?
Western SoMa (South of Market), near San Francisco
“The so-called progressive faction of the demo party have gone rouge”
Khmer or makeup?
hehehe…..I’d say Khmer Rouge closer than any. I mean burning cars, seem abit intense considering it might endanger someone.
That’s worth two points in the Canadian Football League …
Ryan sheds tears for the billionaires and CEOs. JFC, give me a break man. I threw up a little…
100% agree
The left put Elon up on a pedestal and he probably never belonged to there.
Now the right has him up on a pedestal not entirely dissimilar to the one that Trump is on, and he probably doesn’t belong there, either.
Maybe it would be better if people just stopped getting put up on pedestals, either way.
Personally, I think it’s a no-brainer that an outsized combination of money, power, and influence can be dangerous in any individual or group of individuals.
At some point, it becomes uncomfortably likely that the best you can hope for is a benevolent dictatorship, and that is definitely not a democracy.
Maybe we could all do with a little more skepticism and a little less hero worship?
This.
It is entirely possible to agree that the debt problem needs major intervention, the government is suffering from a lack of efficiency which should be rectified ASAP, and that RIF is not a bad thing as long as essential services the taxpayers expect are maintained while also believing that Trump is a liar, cheat, and wholly unsuitable for our highest office and Musk has become a force for dark autocracy.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
And the addiction to ketamine doesn’t seem to help maintain an even keel….
He won’t succeed. He is great at disruption but hasn’t shown a lot of competency at fixing and building back better. The US government has been one of the greatest pillars of stability in history which underpins so much of the prosperity in the world. The US government is looking more like Twitter every day — a steaming cesspool of chaos and instability. It stiffs people and doesn’t honor agreements. I don’t think economists can properly quantify the psychological impact that this chaos and instability will have on markets in the coming months. It will be a far greater disaster than what anyone is predicting now. A guy with a chainsaw belongs on a reality TV show, not reorganizing and shoring up the world’s pillar of economic stability. The American public isn’t going to sober up about this Trump/Musk circus until all this great reality TV has consequences like emptying out their bank account. What’s most frightening is that checks and balances seem to be breaking down. Congress and the courts don’t have the will or power to rein him in when horrific mistakes occur. It’s as if there are no adults left in the room. Markets don’t like lack of accountability. Musk’s venture combined with Trump’s tariff policy is the perfect storm for economic catastrophe. 74% of the world’s GDP comes from outside the US. The US has no friends left in the world while countries controlling the 74% will be increasingly ganging up on the US to isolate and exclude it from supply chains. China has quietly been on an economic world tour about how the U.S. is increasingly erratic and unhinged — no longer a reliable trading partner and a safe place for investment. It’s an effective message because businesses crave stability and predictability. This Trump/Musk circus is not going to end well for anyone at least in the US. Everyone agrees that the US government needs to downsize and be more efficient but this is the wrong team to execute that vision. Great visions live or die according to the efficacy of the execution.
I have absolute faith that the chaos doge is creating right now will be a net loss for the US economy. There’s nothing good about it. Just because sometime is difficult to do right doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to just slash at it. Doge is the equivalent of somebody smashing their car door apart because they can’t find the key.
I can guarantee you, with almost 100% certainty that the “cuts” he’s made won’t even show up as a blimp in the trillions and trillions of debt we sit on.
Yeah, he promised $2T, he is far far south of that.
I’m sure you’re right. The fiscal deficit of nearly $2T needs to be eliminated entirely for anything at all to show up in the stockpile of debt. Cutting spending, even significantly, only slows the growth of the debt.
We had decades to prepare for SS and Medicare to balloon to what they are, and no one lifted a finger. Everyone knew that this was going to happen when the boomers hit retirement, and we got more tax cuts instead. I have zero synpathy.
If tax rates were returned to what they were 30 years ago there’d be far less need for spending cuts. And we’d have far less debt if not for all those tax cuts, and various measures that have allowed the truly rich to structure their finances in such a way as to turn income into capital gains, never taxed until “realized”, at the same time allowing them to effectively realize them, tax-free, by borrowing (and at ZIRP rates) against them (and in some cases even treating interest on those borrowings as a deductible expense).
By tax rates, do you mean nominal or effective? Nominal rates fluctuate a lot, effective not as much. FYI, nobody ever paid 90% income tax.
Effective federal tax rates have fallen for the top tax brackets since the 1940s. I believe they hovered around 44% in the 50s and are now down to the mid 20s.
No one paid those rates, there were massive tax shelters and the percentage of Federal revenue to GDP isn’t any different now than it was then.
But if you are suggesting we also dial back government spending to 1960, no Medicare, Medicaid, or Federal welfare programs, that’s a trade I would make all day long.
Has anyone ever sacrificed so much personal wealth in the name of public service? And all the while his day job is working towards planting the American flag on Mars.
Guest – I may be missing the ‘/s’, but if not, I had the honor of serving with too-many of my fellow citizens who, ‘in public service’, wrote checks to our nation in the amount of their lives, and were subsequently cashed in full. I can’t think of anyone’s ‘personal wealth’ worth more than that…
may we all find a better day.
Should have been smart like Bezos. He retired and bought a super yacht so big that the yachts tender is bigger than most yachts. He’s on permanent vacation. Musk is definitely different.
Gee, maybe, just maybe, we should cut military spending since that is the #1 item with a bullet in the discretionary budget?
True. Right man for the job but he is an anti democratic lunatic. Time will tell if wrecking havoc was the right way to solve the problem.
Please. He’s sacrificing his adopted country for massive tax cuts for himself and his billionaire buddies.
He’s doing it wrong. He set back public health by 50 years and saved 0.1% of HHS budget in the process. And is talking about giving a DOGE dividend to wipe out whatever deficit reduction is achieved. He lies constantly, accusing people of waste and fraud without evidence, and randomly accuses innocent people of worse. I don’t know what his actual motive is, but he’s not acting in good faith. Elon Musk has damaged our nation far more than he has helped. He is now reaping what he has sown.
So the one million plus backlog of deposits from people waiting to buy a Cybertruck has vanished? Oh my!
It looks like I can just drive 15 minutes away and buy a used one with 5,000 miles for $78K. What am I missing here? If the demand is SO GREAT, how could these things just sit there?
Numya, wait a while longer and you can probably buy it for a lot less.
First Twitter now Tesla, his talent at self destruction is catching up with his ability to create wealth. Is Starlink next??? Tesla models are tired and dated and the cyber truck is just a novelty vehicle (similar to retro vehicles that have no where to go after their initial introduction).
Who on earth would sign up for Starlink knowing that Musk can hold the service hostage to serve his political aims?
The truck is beyond ugly.
All it would take is for Trump to order all new Goverment vehicles to be EV and made in America.
If we were as smart as Elon, we world know the future is not EV’s, it is space and data.
He took a risk, and it’s not presently paying off. He surely didn’t intend to crush the brand.
And he knows that, absent the actions his team are taking, the brand, and the country around it, would have eventually been mired in Zimbabwe-like chaos.
I don’t imagine he’s second-guessing his involvement, and I think it had/has to be done.
He’s doing it wrong, on multiple levels. We’ll all be worse off for it.
That means people don’t buy Tesla because it’s better, they buy it for its brand. Other brands are just as good in quality.
This is good news for customers. They now have many choices and don’t need to get locked into one supplier. Competition is always good.
Howdy Folks Elon did not know the #1 Rule for Conservatives. You should not tell most people you are one.
Yep, play the party line but keep your cards close to your chest.
Yep. Its kinda like, progressives claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. Heaven forbide we as a nation attempt to even try to reduce the national debt. Oh well…
To be able to consider that the backlash against Musk derives from his counterproductive approach to efficiency at DOGE requires a more expansive mind than this. His cost saving wins are fabrications, he has destroyed government cybersecurity, created cause for the government to spend money on court cases and rehires, and is paying bloated salaries to his traitor tot crew, all while carrying evident conflicts of interest.
Government downsizing and efficiency could have been done well. Instead, Musk’s moves will cost more in the long run and lead to the GOP losing control of government. Whether crazy or vicious, he is toxic either way. His car business suffers for it. More and more people don’t want to be associated with such a loser. His competitors are happy!
Sincerely, a conservative.
Howdy Bernard. Still, going from a God to a Devil in how many months? HEE HEE. Sure is entertaining….
Bernard, great comment.
Howdy ryan. Fiscal Conservatism got him started with PayPal. Govern ment Subsides got him a 50 Billion Dollar PayDay. He got on television with our new president. How much will he lose now? Like the Lone Wolf typed. ” will sure be entertaining ” .
Maybe Hollywood will make a movie about all this? Or maybe Musk will write a book on his life and become even richer?
Howdy Anthony My Favorite Martian was a great show. YEP.
Musk on Mars would make $$$$$$.
Ryan,
Were the current administration actually serious about reducing the deficit in a fair manner they would not be pushing for continuing large tax breaks for the wealthy, while cutting government services that largely benefit the common man in order to fund those breaks.
The wealthiest Americans, being the largest owners of assets by a massive margin, have benefitted the most from years of QE and ZIRP that allowed the value of their assets to explode. Meanwhile, the average working American has failed to see their wages keep up with the cost to buy assets such as housing as the same wealthy people shipped their jobs overseas.
To ask the average working person to sacrifice more of their health, wealth and safety through the loss of important government watchdog organizations such as the planned massive cuts at the VA, HHS, EPA, National Parks and Forest Service, CFPB etc., so that the wealthiest Americans can continue to eat their cake and have it too, is bad policy for the average American.
The problem is not just the need to reduce the deficit, but the need to do it in a way that doesn’t further disadvantage the average American so that those who have benefitted the most from the deficit can keep those benefits all for themselves and continue to increase the already insane levels of wealth disparity in this country.
Howdy Mirage. Lutnick says he sold 1000 gold cards in one day.
Great comment Mirage. Those cuts aren’t just planned at this point. They’ve happened. Entire divisions at CDC and other parts of HHS doing congressionally mandated work were eliminated, and those employees are gone. Those are services that will now not be available to the public.
what are talking about? What was the last time conservatives did anything about the debt. They simply have no credibility on it as an issue.
Howdy Howie There are NO Fiscal Conservative Politicians
If they put all these cuts and killing of programs through congress like they should do, you wouldn’t have this backlash. The reason you have it all aimed at Elon is because DOGE is a quasi governmental organization and he is hanging out there alone.
Looks to me that for CA, the Tesla drop (~17.5K) is significantly greater than the increase (~7.5K) for Tesla’s competitors. It’s one data point, but I wonder if this is more widespread?
I linked my article, which has all the details, including from my linked article:
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.
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.
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/02/03/tesla-sales-got-crushed-in-q4-in-california-its-largest-us-market-non-tesla-ev-sales-jumped-to-a-record-ice-vehicle-sales-dipped/
I liked the concept of an EV but was never going to buy a Tesla. The build quality reports, factory recalls, first generation car builder, etc scared me off. Eventually other car makers – who build quality cars already – would catch up and they have. This seems like just typical market saturation and decline for a company that stopped innovating.
The Cybertruck looks like it was designed by a 5 year old anxious to complete the assignment so he could go outside and play. I saw one pulling a horse trailer this week and burst out laughing.
A scene from “American Graffiti” comes to mind for me whenever I see a Cybertruck:
“Jeez, what a waste of machinery”
This made me laugh out loud for the first time in a long time:
“The Cybertruck looks like it was designed by a 5 year old anxious to complete the assignment so he could go outside and play”
Thank you for the smile… :)
Yesterday I saw and read an article that Warren Buffet bought Tesla for $1 trillion dollars. It had me going for a moment until I realised what day it was. It was pretty darn funny.
I applaud Doge but grimance when Musk offer $100 to people to sign a petition and awards $1 Million to people in the political arena. I applaud many of Donald Trumps policies (strengthening the border, getting all players in NATO to pay their share, reducing the federal deficit, etc…but would not want to know him personally….it would just be a matter of time until he threw me (like so many others) under the bus. Roy Cohn as a mentor is not my idea of a model.
The idea of a DOGE is great, necessary even. The execution of this one is poor.
Is that last chart the “California Death Cross” ;)?
+ BUT … Cathy “Incinerator” Woods says TESLA is going to $2600 due to Optimus & robo taxis !! :)
What’s amazing to me is that on a day when sales are reported with a 13% decline, and that’s a decline in actual sales, not a decline in growth rate, the stock is trading up today. If in the past, AAPL, for example, reported a quarter with just a decrease in growth of sales, but still record sales, Wall Street would slaughter the stock. Strange Times.
I should also add, a company with an insane PE ratio like Tesla is typically a “growth” company. A 13% decline in sales reflects the opposite of growth. I know, I know, bUt tHe sElf dRivIng tAXis aNd rOboTs.”
The stock started trading up after Politico reported, based on sources in the White House, that Musk will step back from DOGE to spend more time with his companies.
Lol. Brilliant phrasing!
Is spending more time at them a good or bad thing? Seems like Tesla is having their lunch eaten regardless
The market thinks it is a good thing for Tesla.
Here is a fundamental issue: Being CEO of a huge company is a full-time job. But he is CEO of several companies, so that’s already something Tesla investors complained about. They wanted Musk to dedicate himself to pushing Tesla to the next level. But he got sidetracked with all this other stuff he is doing, such as SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), xAI, etc., and now DOGE. In other words, he has become kind of an absentee CEO of Tesla, and Tesla investors worry about that. It’s OK for a few months, but long-term, that’s prolly not a good idea, and they want him to come back and run Tesla.
If he really had brains, he would be selling his stock, big time. Maybe he is.
“and they want him to come back and run Tesla.”
Or find someone else to be CEO, but in Musk’s case I think it would be like Bezos bringing in Galli to run Amazon and then changing his mind. “It’s my company”.
Great timing! LOL
True, and the large short position in TSLA helps a lot.
Tesla is the perfect subscription-based company and users pay dearly for the privilege. There is the $99/yr connectivity charge, the $600/yr maintenance costs at Tesla dealerships, and now that insurance companies are balking at paying up to $16,000 at an “Authorized Repair Centre” to repair a ball joint damaged by a pothole and starting to refuse to insure Tesla or charge 50% more, Tesla now conveniently offers insurance for around $3,700 per year. Hence the intense lobbying to try and force a change in judges that might allow Tesla to operate in Wisconsin (and other states – around 20) without having to use a 3rd party dealer network. My background is buying military stuff and it is the life-cycle costs that will kill you more than the purchase price and everyone wants to sell you some kind of “subscription”. There are huge price and profit advantages with your customers being forced to use only 1 repair centre and your insurance. I personally think once Musk wins his compensation case in court he will sell Tesla like he did with PayPal and collect massive compensation when his $23 per share stock soars to $500.
From a Tesla owner:
The build quality on my two Teslas are as good as anything I have ever owned. I realize there could be variations but that has been true on all kinds of vehicles from all kinds of manufacturers. My full coverage insurance is $3550 combined for both vehicles. ALL my recalls have been over the air updates and neither vehicle has been back to the shop for any reason. (one five years old and one three years old). FSD is finally working as advertised but it did take longer than what was claimed to be delivered. Just FYI from a real owner here.
Canadaguy,
My friend leases one and with included insurance and everything it comes out very reasonable. Given her line of work having a newish car every two years work and of course is a business expense.
Twitter WAS an iconic name as well as logo. Changing it to X was a totally moronic thing to do. Well, what does one expect from a m_____?
Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.
Hell hath no fury like a conservative scorned.
It is not usual for a conservative to react to scorn from a liberal. The conservative will usually just laugh at the liberal and maybe call him a clown. For example, when Biden won, you didn’t see conservatives attacking and damaging stuff made by liberals. Of course it could be because liberals don’t make anything.
You might wanna watch the jan 6 videos again
The capitol building was not constructed by liberals. I don’t think “liberals”, as we call them today, existed in the 1790s.
Wikipedia, a leftist site, says “Many assassination attempts (on presidents), both successful and unsuccessful, were motivated by a desire to change the policy of the American government. Not all such attacks, however, had political reasons. Many other attackers had questionable mental stability, and a few were judged legally insane.” Now that sounds like liberals.
Assassination attempts on Biden: 0.
Assassination attempts on Trump: 2.
MW: Stock-market investors are looking on the bright side of Trump’s tariff announcement and breaking news about Musk and ‘DOGE’
Howdy Folks Could this be the Tesla EV real answer????
Yes, or No in late 2024, Elon Musk visited Toyota’s headquarters in Japan and was reportedly “visibly shaken” after seeing a new engine technology that experts believe could potentially make electric cars obsolete.
He wants to live on Mars anyway using the trillion he will save on earth.
The New Nasa?
DM: Zelle used by 150 million shuts down its app
One of the biggest names in digital banking has officially shut down its app, sending millions scrambling to make sure they have a way of sending money from person to person.
It’s just the app for mobile devices that they shut down. The Zelle service through your bank’s website works great. Wolf Street just received a donation via Zelle. Thank you.
I never ever install financial apps on my cellphone for security reasons.
DM: Musk dramatically steps down from DOGE in shock move after Trump expressed private doubts: Tesla stock rallies on news
President Donald Trump has told his Cabinet and inner circle that Elon Musk is stepping back from his government role. The Tesla and Space X founder will soon be returning to the business world, Politico reported, in a move that rattled the stock market and caused shock waves in Washington. It was a joint decision between the two men and Trump said he remains happy with Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency.
About as credible as your forecast on the gold price.
A few years ago at a luncheon a person at my table was from LA and his best friend was Elon Musks pilot. He mentioned that Elon owns 4 jets which he shares with his top executives. He doesn’t own Mega Yachts nor mega mansions. He would oftened stay at a friends home sleeping on a couch and it was common for him to sleep on the floor at one of his companies when it needed his expertise to solve a problem. When he got into his jet there was silence in the plane Elon was in deep thought about his numerous projects which required his expertise. The man is all work 24×7 to help mankind. Elon Musk is considered one of Americas greatest entrepreneurs if not one of the greatest considering the numerous start-ups leading in the forefront of AI technology. I find it repulsive that people are trying to intimidate him from leaving DOGE by attacking his Tesla cars. His efforts has saved the country $$BB$$’s and discovered massive fraud in government with the NGO’s. He will be leaving in a few weeks having established the DOGE department to continue weeding out the fraud in our government. Elon is a national treasure let’s hope the legacy media stops the attacks on him and his Tesls brand.
Howdy Gomez. He was down to his last rocket and almost lost everything. He probably has had enough of most earthlings ( ME TOO ) and ready for another planet. He seems to like females a bit and I hope there is room enough for a few of them on Mars…..
yes he was down to losing it all in PayPal, Tesla just to name a few he bet it all and in the end it all worked out. This is from an excellent essay written by a former Fortune 10 EVP and a very successful entrepreneur who started a few high tech start ups himself and know what risk taking is —-
Excerpt – If you listen to Elon Musk long enough, you begin to realize that he has a form of Asperger’s, a common trait for many of the world’s greatest minds. This means Elon is highly focused, extremely intelligent, doesn’t lie, and is more interested in solving problems for humanity than worrying about how people feel about him. It would be one thing if he had just one company, but he is running multiple highly complex companies in the world today, all at the same time. Just one of these companies would be daunting, but all of them at the same time is otherworldly in nature. The truth of the matter is that in recorded history, there is really nobody quite like him, and most likely, there never will be for the next thousand years.
100% agree. If Elon were to flush his Tesla stock down the drain he would likely still be the richest man in the world , certainly close to it. The delusional Elon haters are pissing in the wind and back on themselves. People who question the financial or business decisions of the richest man in the world don’t see the irony I guess.
People who equate wealth with morality and intelligence are deluded. Almost as bad as equating PR with reality.
Oh for Crissakes: read up on the pioneers of quantum physics: Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli. etc etc, Or try radar and the cavity magnetron that made micro wave radar possible and in its peace time role, heats yr food. Or the builders of the A Bomb: first the reactor with Fermi, then Oppenheimer, et al.
Musk is a success and therefore is worshipped by those so inclined, he is not a scientist. He wouldn’t be able to follow their conversations. Anymore than Henry Ford, also a success.
To talk about, say, Einstein and Musk in the came breath is
ludicrous.
A.Gom- at gov’t’ level, you need to think as mundanely, and commonly ( like most of us CITIZENRY) as Harry Truman (“…if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen…”). It’s a bit early in history for anyone to feel entitled to the love, let alone the respect of the lumpenpublik…
may we all find a better day.
I hope he’s being fired like all the government workers he fired. He’s going about it all wrong. If he’s such a great humanitarian, why does he find it necessary to lie and make false accusations constantly? Elon Musk has done net damage to this country.
Workers build company reputation through their hard work. Executives destroy companies through hubris and egocentric indulgence.
Dr.- how many units have struggled with tactically-expert personnel under amateur strategists?
may we all find a better day.
……….and Elon has planted how many trees, housed how many of the older poor, helped veterans, or paid his share of taxes? Of Course those people can’t buy his car, Space X internet, or a trip in space…. Let’s get real!
It’s OK BMW and Benz sales are also down, would have happened either way at least now people can just think the trend is temporary lol
GM’s Q1 sales are up 17% YoY. GM’s new EV models are rocking and rolling.
Overall auto sales were up nearly 5% in Q1. Article coming tomorrow morning.
It’s okay though. Him devoting the last month to Wisconsin to use his personal brand to elect a conservative judge *checks notes* exploded in his face.
The comments reveal the underlying nature of the brand and the man.
The company has grown up on hype, and grew a fan base and support from the disruptive nature, underdog roots and unlikely success.
The term “mudder” comes to mind when thinking of the CEO. He performs BEST when pushed to his limits, and “in his element.”
His element is not necessarily a car, space or media company but rather a seemingly insurmountable technological challenge that can be geeked out on.
The share price is directly related to this hype, as is any support in a public arena.
FWIW; I don’t know how division and destruction can possibly make *anything* great?
I don’t see much of a difference between what is happening to Tesla and what has happened to any company that was a frontrunner with new products or technology.
It happened to IBM and PC’s and numerous other companies as well.
Now that other EV’s are available people have a choice. Of course Tesla sales will fall regardless of what he does or says.
And comparing the changes in sales of new products makes it sound really great, but until those numbers reach a stabilised number such as 50,000 or 100,000 a year they’ll just be that+ look great in % terms, but not absolute numbers.
The delivery chart looks quite similar to the nasdaq….
Oh Elon, GTFO-OG (of government) and go back to being whatever you were before. Btw, Elon, who elected you? And your ‘appointment’ was perhaps the only one that didn’t have congressional approval. 🤔
Dislike of Musk aside, I think the real challenge for them is going to invest enough to stay relevant. Tariffs will keep the many advancements from getting into the US market and compete but seems clear current battery technology or even more generally alternative ICE technology will continue to develop rapidly. I drive an ICE 5000 miles/year but it’s paid for and no desire to enter into a market with the need to consider what my charging options are when I travel. From a retirement perspective several years down the road I could honestly see moving to a place with solid public transportation. Then just rent for trips and use Uber / Driverless. Americans love their cars so don’t see that overall picture changing much but 300 miles of driving with a 5 minute charge would certainly change the market.
Three-month Treasury is now paying more than the ten-year Treasury, 4.329% vs. 4.074%. Escape to safety, I assume. And/or the bond market is thinking recession.
I’m thinking stagflation.