Tesla’s US sales were down 5% this year, while all EV sales rose 17%
Tesla faces steep competition and an aging lineup, in addition to protests aimed at CEO Elon Musk.
When Bloomberg asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk last week about declining sales in Europe, he responded, “Europe is our weakest market. We’re strong everywhere else.”
That wasn’t exactly true then and it’s not true now.
Data then showed that, in addition to plummeting European sales, China sales started off poorly in the second quarter. Analysts estimate that the quarter will end down, too, in China, Tesla’s second-biggest market.
Now we have registration from Tesla’s biggest market, the US, and sales appear down there as well.
New Tesla registrations in the US were down 5%, or -6,964 vehicles, in the first three months of 2025, according to data from S&P Global Mobility. Meanwhile, EV sales overall grew by 17%, or more than 40,000 vehicles over last year. S&P analyst Tom Libby noted that there’s a lot more competition in the EV space this year, with at least 70 EV models in the running. Tesla is also contending with an aging lineup of vehicles, having abandoned plans for its long-awaited low-cost car.
Musk’s forays into right-wing politics as the leader of a brand that sells left-wing cars is also likely not helping.
The confluence of poor sales data from around the world this year makes Musk’s claims that Tesla’s sales have turned around and demand has rebounded hard to swallow, though it’s possible that in the interim between when data becomes available publicly, things have flipped. We’ll wait for the data to believe it.
