Chris Isidor | CNN
New York – Tesla sales are on unprecedented slides. Competitors are rapidly gaining positions. There’s a lot of bad news about Tesla these days, but it’s unclear whether the politics of polarizing CEO Elon Musk will be held responsible.
What is known is that Tesla’s first global sales decline last year, a 1% decline since 2023, so it’s not a major drop for many other companies, but it’s worth noting for companies that recorded 38 . A 40% increase in sales over the past two years – and a large growth in stock prices over the past decade has largely been projected for future growth.
Related: Anti-Tesla and Elon Musk waves ripple across the Bay Area
On a time scale, Tesla reported a sharp 16% drop in US sales between December and January, which is typical for the company, with year-end sales reaching full-year financial results It seems to have a great propulsion for the target, falling in January. For example, sales in January 2024 were 24% off sales in December 2023.
However, Tesla faces more than just CEOs who work in at least four other companies, not just the federal government. It makes it difficult to blame one factor critically for the relatively rough seas of the company.
“We’ve been working hard to get started,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Director of Industry Insights at Cox Automotive. “We cannot identify that polarized light is identifying that it would buy or avoid Tesla.”
Musk has been attracting much attention as he works to rebuild the federal government when he co-hosted an oval office press conference with President Donald Trump. And the headwinds in Tesla sales are genuine, from increasing competition to car prices.
Perhaps the biggest indication of a shift of interest in owning Tersa comes from S&P Global Mobility, which has sales data by state. The data has been split into “blue states.” This means the states that voted for Democratic candidates in the last four presidential elections, and the “red state” where Republicans won four consecutive elections. We also looked at the proportion of households within each group in the state who already owned Teslas who purchased another Tesla when they bought a new car.
Related: Tesla sales decline in California, Model 3 crashes 36%
In Blue State, the percentage of repeat Tesla buyers fell from 72% in the last quarter of 2023 to 65% in the last quarter of 2024. 48.2% since 2023 in the last three months of last year.
Due to a decline in Tesla owner loyalty rates in the Blue State, Tesla lost approximately 1% market share points in these states overall. This includes the country’s largest automotive markets, such as California.
There is some additional anecdotal evidence that suggests that some buyers may have been turned off due to mask political activity. Valdez Streety shows that nearly 32% of US buyers will “not consider” Tesla this month’s vote for potential car buyers. This has only increased by 17% when asked questions in February 2021, from 27% in the morning consultation survey a year ago.
By comparison, only 16% of potential buyers are very likely to see Tesla with almost certainty or before purchasing in the latest survey, or a number that has not changed much over the past four years.
The increase in people who say they are surpassing Tesla from their shopping list is not as big as those who are currently expressing a negative view of Musk. A January poll by Kinipiac University found that Musk disapproved of 53% of voters playing a prominent role in the Trump administration, compared to 39%. A December 2022 poll by the university found that 36% of voters had positive opinions about Musk, while 35% had negative opinions.
Teslas is now available for sale
One factor that can show rebound from Tesla-based masks is the number of used Teslas on the market when owners dump their cars. And more Teslas is trading now, with Cox’s autotraders, averaged around 11,300 Teslas listed on record throughout the fourth quarter of last year, up 28% from the previous year’s average of 8,800.
But even that has complicated factors. Cox said there is likely a lot of the Teslas flooding due to the surge after sales three years ago and the natural trends of some people trading their cars three years later.
And there are many other factors that are likely to cut sales of the new Tesla, and the most notable increase in competition. Legacy western automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen have been rolling out new models of electric vehicles over the past few years.
By comparison, Tesla has made relatively modest changes to its main lineup (Model Y and Model 3 sedans, Model X and Model Y SUVs). One new model, the CyberTruck pickup, is an expensive niche car that only sold understatedly.
There is also important new competition with Chinese automaker BYD. This has almost won Tesla in EV sales around the world, and actually surpassed a large margin in the fourth quarter of 2024. BYD has taken market share from Tesla in China and Europe, but is still entering the US market.
German Tesla sales in January fell 59% compared to a year ago, according to the German Federal Motor Transport Agency. And just as Musk is a major supporter of Trump, he has become a well-known supporter of the far-right alternative to the German (AFD) party.
A car purchase is the largest and most carefully considered purchase that consumers make outside of their homes. And they generally see more value than factors such as prices, options and CEO politics, said Ivan Dooley, director of Insights at Edmunds, a car buying site. .
“In Populaton, there’s a huge strip that doesn’t bother politics or that’s the one that’s the most,” Drury said. “When you make a purchase like this and focus on prices, many people will put their feelings aside about politics.”
CNN Wire
™ & ©2025 Cable News Network, Inc., Warner Bros Discovery Company. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
