Tesla has taken the unusual step of publishing sales forecasts that suggest 2025 deliveries will be lower than expected and future years’ sales will be well below targets set by its chief executive, Elon Musk.
The US electric vehicle maker published figures from analysts suggesting it will announce 423,000 deliveries during the fourth quarter of 2025, in a new “consensus” section on its investor website. That would represent a 16% decline from the final quarter of 2024.
The estimates suggested that Tesla would deliver 1.64m cars in 2025 as a whole, down from 1.79m in 2024. Deliveries are then estimated to rise to 1.75m in 2026 and 3m in 2029.
Musk claimed at a shareholder meeting in November that the company was aiming to produce 4m cars a year by the end of 2027.
Tesla’s shares are valued at $1.4tn (£1.04tn), making it worth more than the next 30 carmakers combined despite its output being less than a fifth of that of Japan’s Toyota. Musk’s Tesla shares, as well as his stake in the rocket company SpaceX, have made him by far the world’s richest man, with a fortune estimated at $623bn, according to Bloomberg.
However, much of Tesla’s valuation has been based on shareholder hopes that Musk will lead the carmaker to become the global leader in self-driving technology and robotics more generally.
When it comes to actual sales, Tesla has endured a tough year in part thanks to distaste among some consumers for Musk’s embrace of rightwing politics.
In 2024, Musk was the biggest donor to the election campaign of Donald Trump and then launched an effort to cut government spending with the Department of Government Efficiency (or Doge). His alliance with the US president did not survive the summer, with Trump instead scrapping buyer subsidies worth $7,500 a vehicle and slashing supportive regulations for electric cars.
The estimates published by Tesla this week are lower than other compilers have suggested. An average of forecasts by investment banks compiled by Bloomberg suggested that Tesla would deliver 440,907 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
Investment banks often publish sales and profit forecasts for large companies in order to judge the prospects for share price movements. “Missing” consensus forecasts often result in share price declines, and vice versa for a “beat”.
The forecasts for later years are also far below Musk’s stated targets. In November, Musk said the carmaker was trying to increase production by 50% by the end of 2026, and to produce 4m cars by the end of 2027, according to a transcript compiled by AlphaSense, a data company. However, the forecasts suggest the carmaker will hit the 3m mark only in 2029.
Tesla shareholders in November approved a $1tn compensation plan for Musk, in part on the basis of Tesla delivering 20m cars. Of those cars, 10m will have to have active subscriptions for “full self-driving”, its autonomous software, in order for Musk to qualify for the payment.
