BYD stormed past as Tesla’s 2025 deliveries slid again
Tesla has lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker after a customer revolt over Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring US tax breaks, and fiercer overseas competition hit the company’s bottom line.
Tesla said it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down nine per cent from a year earlier. Chinese rival BYD, which sold 2.26 million cars last year, is now the biggest EV maker.
It is a nasty reversal for Musk, who once brushed off BYD as a threat while Tesla looked unstoppable. That run steamrolled traditional carmakers with deeper pockets and helped make Musk the world’s richest man.
Fourth-quarter sales came in at 418,227, short of the 440,000 that analysts polled by FactSet expected. The tally was hit by the expiration of a $7,500 tax credit that the Trump administration phased out at the end of September.
Tesla stock still rose 0.5 per cent to $451.60 in early Friday trading. Even as the company takes hits from multiple angles, investors are still betting that Musk can land robotaxis and sell humanoid robots for basic chores in homes and offices.
The robot thing has been promised for ages and is still a long way from doing what Musk claims. Robotaxis are starting as a production option, but the competition is stiff, and watchdogs are snuffling at the heels of rivals. In short, all those investors hoping that paying so much cash to Musk will make them rich would be better off investing in bridges and radio towers.
That optimism showed up in the share price, with the stock ending 2025 up about 11 per cent. The latest quarter was also the first to include sales of stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3 that Musk unveiled in early October to jolt demand.
The new Model Y costs just under $40,000, while the cheaper Model 3 comes in at just under $37,000. Those budget trims are meant to help Tesla compete with Chinese models across Europe and Asia.
For fourth-quarter earnings due in late January, FactSet expects a three per cent drop in sales and a near 40 per cent slide in earnings per share. Analysts expect the downtrend in sales and profits to reverse as 2026 progresses.
Musk could even become the world’s first trillionaire later this year if he sells shares of his rocket company SpaceX to the public for the first time, in what analysts expect would be a blockbuster IPO.
