Tesla has had another setback in 2025. And it has accumulated two years in a row of decline. The company had experienced a meteoric rise until 2023 but has accumulated two years of clear decline. And the most worrying thing is that their promises were to multiply their sales but, above all, to take advantage of the pull of an electric car that is gaining followers.
When it is easier to sell electric cars, Tesla falls.
1,636,129. These have been the cars delivered by Tesla in 2025. Of them, 1,585,279 correspond to the sum of the Model Y and Model 3, which leaves the S, X and Cybertruck slightly above 50,000 units in an entire year.
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For the second year in a row, Tesla falls. If we review the figures for 2024, the company put about 150,000 more electric cars on the market than this year. to get it pressed the accelerator to the floor in the last quarter of the year but this time it has not worked for him.
two years. Although Elon Musk’s team tried by all means to stop the fall in 2024, this time it has been impossible. The drop in deliveries is significant but it is much more so if we look at 2023. That continues to be a record year for the company. So they put 1.81 million cars on the market. If we look back, Tesla has stopped selling around 10% of electric cars compared to two years ago.
That year, Tesla positioned the Tesla Model Y as the best selling car in the world. With his final push, Tesla managed to stop BYD from overtaking him. But it was a victory with an expiration date because the Chinese company has far surpassed it in 2025. According to data collected by ElectrekBYD has sold 2.25 million electric cars in 2025 (exceeding 4.5 million cars in total).
20 million. Tesla’s data is especially concerning for the company because its promises were enormous. In 2022, Elon Musk aimed to In 2030 they would sell 20 million cars. To give us an idea, it is the sum of all the sales of Toyota and the Volkswagen Group together.
The problem for Elon Musk’s company is not just that its growth has stagnated. The real problem is that it does so just when the electric car market is broader than ever. In the absence of knowing the definitive data for 2025, the truth is that Every year the electric car market is broader and the possibilities of placing a car in it are broader.
In the European Union (with data from November) The electric car has grown by 27.6%. And the share of electric cars has grown by three points, standing above 16%. According to ACEA data, only in Croatia, Estonia, Luxembourg and Romania have fewer electric cars been sold than in 2024. And sales of electric cars in China continue to grow.
Because? There are several factors that explain Tesla’s sharp sales decline. Elon Musk’s company has experienced a rollercoaster of emotions in 2025. The first stages of the year They didn’t anticipate a good workout. and it has ended up being confirmed:
And he has made efforts. And the company has tried to turn the tables. The most obvious efforts are the redesign of the Tesla Model 3 (September 2023) and Tesla Model Y. The latter has undoubtedly had to impact its production in 2025 but it is clear that it has not managed to gain traction as expected in the market.
But, in addition, the company has put on the market two shortened versions called Standard. The objective is clear: to make the product more attractive while raising the price of the previous options so that anyone interested in them would have to spend some extra money. At the same time, it looks like a great car to sell to large fleets.
No gap. The other big problem for Tesla is that rivals seem to have entered territory that seemed limited for the company. In China, the market has long turn towards local products and in Europe more attractive sized versions are arriving.
And the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y are large for the size they are usually purchased in Europe. Before, with less competition, they seemed like the ideal product. and for price They are still one of the best options of the market but unaffordable for those looking for cars of about four and a half meters.
Tesla is also not managing to carry out options that are clearly cut from the Model 3 or Model Y. The company had the objective of launching an electric car smaller than these two models but if it has not launched them on the market it is because can’t make them profitable.
Photo | Bram Van Oost
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