Tesla sales drop in early 2025 amid Elon Musk backlash
Sales of Tesla electric vehicles dropped by 13 percent in the first quarter of 2025, marking the company's worst quarterly performance since 2022.
It comes amid strengthening competition in the car market and a backlash to chief executive Elon Musk's embrace of far-right politics, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
The company's share price fell 2 per cent on Wednesday as the company recorded a bigger-than-expected drop in sales.
The company sold just 336,681 vehicles between January to March, roughly 50,000 fewer cars than for the same period last year.
Despite more people buying electric vehicles globally, Tesla's sales in Europe and China have slumped, ceding market share to local rivals.
Mr Musk's political stance, which has seen back the far right AfD party in Germany and become increasingly close to US President Donald Trump, have also prompted vandalism against Tesla cars and dealerships globally.
Reacting to the sales news, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said it was a "disaster on every metric".
"We are not going to look at these numbers with rose-coloured glasses," he told Reuters.
"The Street and us knew a bad [first quarter] was coming but this was even worse than expected."
Mr Musk last year predicted 20 to 30 per cent sales growth in 2025, and promised to launch an affordable model in the first half of this year.
China's BYD is set to unseat Tesla as the top global EV seller for the first time this year with a 15.7 per cent market share, ahead of Tesla's 15.3 per cent, according to Counterpoint Research.
Tesla's sales in key European markets fell again in March, with sales in France and Sweden dropping for a third straight month.
Tesla began offering the refreshed Model Y with updated styling and enhanced interiors in China late February and in the U.S. and Europe last month.
Data from auto industry associations and analyst estimates point to notable declines in Tesla sales during the first two months of the year in the US, Europe, and China.
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