Tesla loses title as world’s biggest electric vehicle maker as sales fall for second year in a row

Tesla vehicles charge at a station. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Godofredo A. Vásquez

Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker on Friday as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks for buyers and stiff overseas competition pushed sales down for a second year in a row.

Tesla said that it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down nine per cent from a year earlier.

Chinese rival BYD, which sold 2.26 million vehicles last year, is now the biggest EV maker.

It’s a stunning reversal for a car company whose rise once seemed unstoppable as it overtook traditional automakers with far more resources and helped make Musk the world’s richest man.

For the fourth quarter, sales totaled 418,227, falling short of even the much reduced 440,000 target that analysts recently polled by FactSet had expected. Sales were hit hard by the expiration of a US$7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle purchases that was phased out by the Trump administration at the end of September.

Tesla stock was down nearly three per cent at US$436.85 in afternoon trading Friday.

Even with multiple issues buffeting the company, investors are betting that Tesla CEO Musk can deliver on his ambitions to make Tesla a leader in robotaxi services and get consumers to embrace humanoid robots that can perform basic tasks in homes and offices. Reflecting that optimism, the stock finished 2025 with a gain of approximately 11 per cent.

The latest quarter was the first with sales of stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3 that Musk unveiled in early October as part of an effort to revive sales. The new Model Y costs just under US$40,000 while customers can buy the cheaper Model 3 for under US$37,000. Those versions are expected to help Tesla compete with Chinese models in Europe and Asia.

For fourth-quarter earnings coming out in late January, analysts are expecting the company to post a three per cent drop in sales and a nearly 40 per cent drop in earnings per share, according to FactSet. Analysts expect the downward trend in sales and profits to eventually reverse itself as 2026 rolls along.

Investors have largely shrugged off the falling numbers, choosing to focus on Musk’s pivot to different parts of business. He has been saying the future of the company lies with its driverless robotaxis service, its energy storage business and building robots for the home and factory — and much less with car sales.

Tesla started rolling out its robotaxi service in Austin earlier this year, first with safety monitors in the cars to take over in case of trouble, then testing without them. The company hopes to roll out the service in several cities this year.

To do that successfully, it needs to take on rival Waymo, which has been operating autonomous taxis for years and has far more customers. It also will also have to contend with regulatory challenges. The company is under several federal safety investigations and other probes. In California, Tesla is at risk of temporarily losing its license to sell cars in the state after a judge there ruled it had misled customers about their safety.

“Regulatory is going to be a big issue,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a well-known bull on the stock. “We’re dealing with people’s lives.”

Still, Ives said he expects Tesla’s autonomous offerings will soon overcome any setbacks.

Musk has said he hopes software updates to his cars will enable hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles to operate autonomously with zero human intervention by the end of this year. The company is also planning to begin production of its AI-powered Cybercab with no steering wheel or pedals in 2026.

To keep Musk focused on the company, Tesla’s directors awarded Musk a potentially enormous new pay package that shareholders backed at the annual meeting in November.

Musk scored another huge windfall two weeks ago when the Delaware Supreme Court reversed a decision that deprived him of a US$55 billion pay package that Tesla doled out in 2018.

Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire later this year when he sells shares of his rocket company SpaceX to the public for the first time in what analysts expect would be a blockbuster initial public offering.

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This story has been corrected to show that BYD sold 2.26 million vehicles last year, not 2.26.

Paul Harloff And Bernard Condon, The Associated Press. AP video journalist Mustakim Hasnath contributed to this report from London.