Tech visionary Elon Musk is known for his often over-optimistic forecasts. 2025 therefore once again held numerous disappointments for Tesla investors.
• Elon Musk was again too optimistic for 2025
• The Tesla boss was unable to keep numerous promises
• Disappointment in Tesla sales, Robotaxis, Semi and Optimus
For many Tesla investors, it is Elon Musk’s ambitious goals that make the stock so attractive. But the last few years have shown again and again that the Tesla boss is often far too optimistic about his goals and schedules. Even in 2025, several of his announcements have not been fulfilled.
Increase in Tesla deliveries
After Tesla recorded a decline in the delivery volume of its battery-operated electric vehicles for the first time in 2024, things should actually pick up again steeply in 2025. According to the news portal “electrek”, Musk spoke at the end of 2024 of expecting “an increase in volume growth of 20 to 30 percent in 2025”.
But instead, Tesla suffered its second consecutive decline in EV deliveries throughout 2025. They fell by 8.5 percent to a good 1.636 million units – even though global sales of electric vehicles rose by 25 percent during this period.
Massive wave of robotaxis
The Tesla CEO was also far too optimistic about the spread of robotaxis. According to “electrek”, Musk had stated in mid-2025: “I think we will probably provide half of the US population with autonomous driving services by the end of the year.” He previously claimed that Tesla would have “over a million robotaxis on the road” by 2025.
Although Musk revised his forecasts downwards over the course of the year, the end result is still sobering. Tesla’s “robotaxis” fleet in Austin consists of just around 30 vehicles, and according to “electrek” information, most of them are not in operation most of the time and also require safety monitors inside the cars.
Meanwhile, Musk plans to start mass production of the Cybercab robotaxis at the end of 2026. However, Tesla’s full self-driving software is not yet approved for unattended operation anywhere in the USA.
Start of semi-production
The Tesla Semi program is still not progressing as hoped. The electric semi-trailer trucks were originally supposed to be launched in 2019, but then there were repeated delays. In the meantime, the official start of production was targeted for 2025, but at the end of 2025 Tesla had to admit that the start of production of the electric truck would be postponed again, this time to the first half of 2026, with a ramp-up phase for volume production in the second half of the year.
Wide use of Optimus robots
Another of Tesla’s ambitious goals also stalled: Optimus – a humanoid robot, manufactured in mass production, affordable, versatile and potentially a new billion-dollar business area. But production, which according to the original plans was supposed to pick up speed with 5,000 units in 2025, is hardly getting anywhere. There are no official figures on this, but according to “electrek”, Tesla seems to be a long way from achieving its goal.
Tesla stopped orders for the robot’s central components back in June. There was no justification for this from the US company, but circles familiar with the processes said that the current version was simply not ready for series production. Since Tesla has not yet presented the latest version of the robot, further delays are likely to occur in this project.
Editorial team finanzen.net
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