Tesla published information on deliveries in the first quarter on Wednesday.
The deliveries of Tesla are in the past quarter after a model change and controversy around company boss Elon Musk fell by around 13 percent in the year. The Musk led by Tech billionaire Musk Electric car-Between January and the end of March, the manufacturer brought 336,681 vehicles to customers. The numbers were significantly worse than expected from analysts.
The weak deliveries had already emerged. In the first two months of 2025, the Tesla new registrations in the European Union fell to a good 19,000 cars in the year in 2025. In Germany, the new registrations in February fell to only 1429 of 6038 vehicles a year earlier. In March there was a minus of more than eleven percent in China in March. Tesla himself does not provide any information about results in individual regions.
Generation change at Model Y
It is difficult to determine how strongly individual reasons contributed to the decline. A factor should be the switch to a renewed generation of the bestseller Model Y.
Tesla converted the production lines at the beginning of the year. For this, production paused for a few weeks. At the same time, pricing prospective customers were less to buy a vehicle of the previous Y variant. It could still take two quarters for this effect to be digested, Bryn Talkington from Requisite Capital Management estimates.
At the same time, Tesla built a good 16 percent less cars with 362,615 cars of all models in the past quarter than a year earlier.
Controversy around Musk
In addition, the criticism of the political role and the views of Musk has become increasingly louder in recent months. There were boycott calls and only last weekend protests at Tesla locations in different countries.
The tech billionaire became a tight ally of Donald Trump last year, to whom he donated more than $ 250 million for the election campaign for the White House. As President, Trump Trump him with the lowering of government expenditure.
Political division meets the brand
Musk triggered numerous controversy in this role. Critics accuse him of ruthless cuts. For example, he bragged about throwing the development aid authority in the USAID “in the wood chopper” – and constantly speaks of allegedly discovered billions of billions without providing any evidence.
Musk’s political views also scare at least some potential Tesla buyers. In Germany, the Tech billionaire campaigned for the AfD before the Bundestag election and mixed into British politics for a while.
He complains about alleged racism against white and claims that the US Democrats smoke foreigners into the country to turn elections in their favor. At an event for the inauguration of Trump, Musk shocked spectators with a Hitler greeting-like gesture. He criticized this as the “dirty tricks” of his opponents.
Tesla purchase show at the White House
Musk was considered the most important driving force for Tesla’s success for years. But will his political actions become a burden on the electric car maker? In demonstrations, Teslas are insulted as “Nazi cars”. Vehicles were lit at Tesla delivery centers and smeared with slogans.
The US government demonstratively strengthens Trump’s familiar muscle. US Justice Minister Pam Bondi threatened to classify vandalism against Tesla as domestic terrorism. Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick called on buying Tesla shares. Trump himself had several Teslas opened in front of the White House and chose a red model for sale. “I love Tesla!”, The US President announced in an unusual advertising campaign.
Musk hopes for robotaxis and robots
Even at Musk and Tesla, well – -being industry analysts Dan Ives rings the alarm bells. Now a “moment of truth” for Musk is, the expert from the investment company Wedbus recently said in the US economic station CNBC. Musk had to bring his cost-lowering role and the job as Tesla boss into balance-and maybe step down a little in the White House, Ives suggested to him. The deliveries now called Ives a “disaster”.
Industry expert Gene Munster from Deepwater Management attributed the “ugly” numbers to the damage for the brand by Musk. At the same time, however, he was convinced that the car buyers will overlook the Tesla boss’s political activities over the course of the year and will focus on the strengths of the car manufacturer again. For 2026, Munster expects 35 percent of deliveries to 2.2 million vehicles. Ross Gerber from the investment company Gerber Kawasaki, a musk critic,, on the other hand, has doubts as to whether the damage to the Tesla mark can be remedied.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s cars are getting more and more competition – especially in the important Chinese market. Musk, on the other hand, keeps that autonomous driving and humanoid robot Tesla would make it by far the most valuable company in the world. However, the company has so far owed the proof that it can build reliably driving cars without human intervention.
Tesla share gets curve: Musk acknowledged at Trump?
The course of the Tesla shares carried out a considerable U-turn on Wednesday. Surprisingly weak production and delivery figures of the e-car manufacturer at the start of the year had left the papers sacks by more than six percent at the start of the trade. In her suction, the papers from the electric car manufacturer Rivian Automotive also at times at 4.97 percent to $ 12.62. In the course of the trade, however, they turned into plus and temporarily expanded the profits in Nasdaq trading up to 6 percent. In the end, the titles still listed 5.33 percent of $ 282.76. This increase was triggered by media reports that chief Elon Musk gave up his advisory post with the government of the United States.
According to matching media reports, US President Donald Trump has indicated that Tech billionaire Elon Musk may soon be able to play a lower role in his government. As the magazine “Politico” and the broadcaster ABC News reported, citing the matter, Trump gave the relevant information to tight consultants.
Since the record high of the Tesla shares in mid-December at just under $ 490, the course had more than halved by mid-March. Market observers had not considered the previous Rally, triggered by Donald Trump’s election victory. It was also complained that Musk had no longer adequately campaigned for his company because of his strong engagement as Trump’s consultant. In addition, there were protests and boycott calls because of the political attitude of Musk, which could have been deterred to potential buyers of Tesla vehicles.
Analyst Edison Yu from Deutsche Bank confirmed on Wednesday that Tesla was not running round. The number of vehicles delivered in the first quarter is under its estimate and even more clearly on the market under the consensus forecast. Compared to the final quarter of 2024, deliveries broke up by almost a third. He expected the car manufacturer in Europe with a weak performance in Europe, according to Yu, but now it seems to have been worse on the home market for Tesla than it was assumed.
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