Tesla Reports Largest-Ever Y-o-Y Drop in Deliveries

Tesla deliveries declined 14 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, continuing a troubling trend for the U.S. EV market leader. As the company reported on Wednesday, Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter - just shy of Wall Street expectations and down from 444,000 in the same quarter a year ago. The latest figure marks the largest-ever year-over-year decline in deliveries for Tesla, whose shareholders typically expect no less than double-digit growth from the company. After suffering its first annual decline in deliveries last year, Tesla now looks on track to suffer the same fate in 2025.

Tesla currently faces a number of headwinds, as intense competition from China, the Trump administration's rollback of electric vehicle tax credits and its ageing vehicle line-up have significantly worsened the outlook for the company. And that's before taking into account the backlash against CEO Elon Musk and his role in the Trump administration, which hurt Tesla's reputation in parts of the U.S. and across Europe.

As our chart illustrates, there have been remarkably few setbacks in Tesla's rapid production and delivery ramp-up over the past few years. After Elon Musk had unveiled the mass-market Model 3 in 2016, pre-orders quickly exceeded the number of cars Tesla had built in its lifetime, leading to questions of whether the company could actually meet the demand. Last year, Tesla delivered nearly 1.8 million vehicles to customers - 30 percent more than it did between 2012 and 2020 combined.