Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

• Tesla released its latest quarterly sales figures — and they're worse than Wall Street expected.
• Elon Musk's automaker saw sales fall by nearly 16% and recorded its second consecutive annual decline.
• Tesla shares have hit record highs over its robotaxi rollout, but the company's EV business is struggling.

Tesla ended a roller coaster year with its sales going into reverse.

Elon Musk's automaker said on Friday that it sold 418,227 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter, down by 15.6% from the same period in 2024.

It means Tesla's annual sales have declined for the second consecutive year, and that Chinese rival BYD has surpassed Tesla for the first time in annual sales of battery-electric vehicles.

Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to sell around 441,000 EVs, per data compiled by Bloomberg, while Tesla released its own, more pessimistic, analyst consensus forecast of 422,850 units in an unusual move earlier this week.

BYD said on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units in 2025. Tesla said it delivered about 1.64 million vehicles for the year.

Tesla recorded its first-ever annual sales decline in 2024, after years of explosive growth. The latest figures suggest the company has been hit hard by the demise of the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs in September.

The looming deadline saw US buyers race to snap up electric vehicles, driving record sales for Tesla and other automakers.

Once the tax credit ended, however, EV sales dropped across the board, including at Tesla's rivals Ford, Hyundai, and Kia.

The slump saw Tesla's sales hit their lowest level since 2022 in November, despite the brand rolling out cheaper versions of its bestselling Model 3 and Y vehicles a month before.

Tesla's overseas struggles

Tesla has also faced difficulties this year in Europe and China, two of its biggest international markets.

In China, the EV giant has faced fierce competition from local rivals offering high-tech electric models at rock-bottom prices.

Tesla's sales have plummeted in Europe amid backlash over CEO Musk's endorsement of far-right German party AfD, with December registrations dropping 66% year-over-year in France and 44% in Spain, according to national auto association data.

Analysts previously told Business Insider that Tesla is also suffering from a stale product lineup. The company has not launched a new vehicle since the Cybertruck in 2023, and the divisive pickup has been a sales disappointment.

Record-high stock

Despite these headwinds, Tesla's stock price hit a record high in December as investors expressed optimism over the automaker's robotaxi rollout.

Tesla launched a robotaxi service in Austin in June and has ambitious plans to expand autonomous ride-hailing to multiple cities in the US this year.

Musk has said the company's future lies in its robotaxi and Optimus robot initiatives, and the Austin-based automaker is preparing to begin mass production in April of its Cybercab robotaxi, which does not have a steering wheel or pedals.

In an earnings call in October, Musk said that the looming launch of Tesla's "unsupervised" Full Self-Driving software would boost demand for the company's vehicles, and told investors that the robotaxi service in Austin would operate without safety monitors by the end of 2025.

Musk said on December 24 that he took a ride around Austin without a safety driver, but as of Wednesday, they were still sitting inside vehicles available to the public.