I've covered electric vehicles for more than 15 years, and I've seen lots of ups and downs. But I've been quite startled by the volume of anti-Tesla material, in my feeds and sent to me personally, over the last few weeks.
It's far from the usual anti-EV myths and nonsense. "I commute 125 miles each way every day up a 9,000-foot grade towing 14,000 pounds: EVs will never work!" No, this anti-Tesla sentiment is far more specific. It's all about Elon Musk. And Musk has no one to blame but himself this time.
Damage On Many Fronts
Tesla's long-serving CEO has altered his own narrative, no longer drawing attention for technical innovation but with actions that add up to a cauldron of extremism: support for ultra-right-wing causes; one or more alleged Nazi salutes; racist posts and anti-trans agitation on his social network X; and—most important—his arguably lawless rampage through U.S. government offices as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
There are some indications that Musk may be on the way out at DOGE, especially after the Wisconsin Supreme Court race he stumped for and invested in completely backfired. But the damage to Tesla is already evident. European and United Kingdom sales have plummeted, and North American sales are flat at best. The automaker announced this past week that it delivered 336,681 vehicles globally in the first quarter of 2025, a 13% decline from the same period last year.
But as much as Musk is the sole face of the brand, his recent political activities are only one part of a storm of problems for Tesla. Much of it stems from decisions by Musk that date back as early as 2019. Those actions have led the company to its current troubles. It’s worth diving into the details to understand all the interlocking factors that face the company today.
Cybertruck: A Sales Disaster
The radical and polarizing Cybertruck has been a sales catastrophe of Edsel-like proportions. Only about 50,000 have been sold in North America over more than a year, against projections of many times that number. While it was America's best-selling electric pickup truck in 2024, it now appears that everyone who wanted one has probably bought one. We now know the market size for large, silver, battery-electric dystopian movie props—and it’s not large enough to carry the world’s most valuable car company.
Worse, unlike every previous Tesla model, the Cybertruck is currently limited to North America. Its size and unique construction make it a tough sell—literally—everywhere else in the world. In December, Tesla said it had no plans to sell the truck in China “for now.” In Europe, doubts remain over the stainless-steel truck’s ability to comply with pedestrian-protection impact and crush standards.
For a much-touted next product first shown in 2019 that supposedly received a million or more reservations, that seems … restrictive.
Stale Products, Real Competitors
The more affordable volume Teslas, the Model Y crossover and the Model 3 sedan, are now old products in a market where cars are updated every three years and replaced entirely every five to seven. The electric vehicle world is now advancing at a rapid pace, faster than gas cars ever did, but the original electric pioneer is languishing. Sure, the Model Y “Juniper” refresh is just hitting the U.S. market now, but even the world’s best-selling car can only do so much against a multitude of new and often better competitors.
This certainly wasn't the case in 2017 when the Model 3 launched or even in early 2020 when the Model Y arrived. More than two dozen new EVs from established makers, and Rivian and Lucid too, have hit the market since then. As for China, it’s clearly taken what it needed from Tesla and has moved on. On many fronts, it’s not as if sales will automatically return to last year's levels overnight, even absent Musk’s antics.
Plus, even if you really want a Tesla, why buy a new one now? With a surging supply of used Teslas on the market as angered owners trade them in for other EVs, Tesla also faces competition from its own, “lightly used” products. Not only do they look similar to today’s brand-new ones, the falling retail prices of used Teslas make them a surprisingly good value against brand-new ones.
Still No $25,000 Tesla
Last October, Musk announced the company had walked away from the "$25,000 Tesla” he had first promised in 2020. He called the idea of selling a $25,000 Tesla that wasn’t a robotaxi “pointless” and “silly.” His comments came only a few months after he said Chinese EVs are so good that without trade barriers, “they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.” Cause and effect? It seems entirely possible.
Affordability is increasingly a barrier to new-car sales in North America, and the market desperately needs cheaper cars in general. A truly affordable EV could sell like gangbusters, and Tesla was perhaps best placed to have delivered it.
Now, that segment will apparently be ceded to Hyundai and Kia, and the upcoming revised Chevrolet Bolt EV.
China Is Over It
In early 2020, just as the world entered lockdown, Shanghai-built Tesla Model 3s went on sale in China. The Model Y followed within a year. Together the two cars ignited a passion for EVs in Chinese buyers that domestic brands had never incited. They brought a tech-forward Western car brand into the heart of China’s auto market—and sales from the Shanghai gigafactory soared.
Those days are over. Amidst vastly improved offerings from Chinese makers that benefitted from heavy subsidies early on and can now better meet the needs of local customers, Teslas are now seen as old, stale, and far from competitive with the latest domestic brands, especially in the software and infotainment services they offer. In China, Tesla is seen as a reliable and proven brand, but now far from groundbreaking.
Want proof? Even the updated Model Y couldn't reverse an 11.5% sales decline in China, where DOGE and Musk's politics are hardly a concern for EV buyers.
The 'Charging Moat' Is Gone
When Tesla announced in 2012 that it would build its own, nationwide, DC fast-charging network, the rest of the industry thought it was insane. Crazy like a fox, maybe. Within two years, it was possible to drive a Tesla cross-country while the competing CCS charging standard used by other EV makers was still being finalized. Deeply integrated into the car, Supercharging was seamless, accurate, and orders of magnitude above the experience in any other EV on the market.
In 2023, Ford struck a deal with Tesla to let its EVs charge at Superchargers. General Motors did the same within weeks, and the rest of the industry breathlessly followed. For Tesla, the advantage is added revenue to continue expanding the Supercharger network’s role as the biggest dog in the North American charging world.
The flip side is that Tesla’s “charging moat” in North America, often the single strongest reason to recommend a Tesla, is now gone. Tesla drivers no longer have their own, dedicated, unquestionably better charging network. Now, plebes have that too. (Europe mandated a common connector years ago, so Tesla charging stations have long served all EVs in those markets.)
If you can get a Tesla-esque EV now, perhaps with even better range and features, that can still access the Supercharger network without any of the Musk baggage, why wouldn’t you go for it?
The Robotaxi Obsession
Perhaps most troublesome, Musk appears to have lost interest in the hard business of building and selling cars to consumers. He is all in on so-called self-driving, with the company pivoting to a "robotaxi" business model in which it will build vehicles that will operate in networks it owns to provide on-demand driverless taxi services. And he has claimed the company can sell 2 to 4 million of its proposed Cybercab models a year.
That vehicle, a two-seat hatchback, raised eyebrows when displayed last fall: cabs with only two passenger seats are almost nonexistent. The Robovan is a novel concept, but there’s been zero evidence since its debut that it will ever be anything more than that. Rumors have suggested a less expensive addition to the Tesla line might be the Cybercab vehicle, but with a steering wheel and driver controls.
Yet two-seat vehicles have only ever been a tiny fraction of the U.S. market, so it would have to have a jaw-droppingly low price to get serious consideration. The highest sales year ever for the Smart ForTwo was 2009, when 14,600 found buyers. It only sold even 10,000 units again once.
As for self-driving software, while Tesla's vision-only system may at least arguably be the best Level 2 (eyes-on, hands-on) system on the market, most analysts say it's nowhere near ready for hands-off operation—let alone full eyes-off autonomy that can dispense with a driver.
Analyst Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research of Telemetry, was blunt about the idea of millions of Cybercabs a year: “That’s just never going to happen as long as they stick to a camera-only system.” Meanwhile, GM, Ford, Mercedes, and others already offer hands-off active cruise control via multiple sensors. Tesla systems still require drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.
What The Experts Say
I reached out to three auto-industry analysts and asked each the headline question: Can Tesla survive Musk? All three said yes, but with considerable nuance.
Stephanie Brinley of S&P Global was cautiously optimistic. “I think it’s probable. Maybe it isn’t guaranteed, but it’s more likely that Tesla will survive and ultimately still thrive,” she said. Brinley cited multiple scandals survived by major makers, including VW’s global emissions deceptions, both tire separation and Pinto fires for Ford, major safety recalls for GM, and so on.
Telemetry’s Sam Abuelsamid agreed Tesla can survive. But, he said, “It will need to be a different company than the one we’ve become accustomed to.” He suggested its growth days are behind it, its potential to achieve the widely-touted 20 million units a year is “near zero,” and its sales in China will continue to decline. He called the promise of millions of robotaxis a “fantasy,” and summarized its prospects this way: “It’s a smaller company for the future.”
“Tesla’s undoubtedly been a game-changer and a leader in the EV space,” said Robby DeGraff, manager of product and consumer insights at the research firm AutoPacific. “But the reality is that there are so many other better and more compelling options out there for buyers. Tesla is more at risk than ever of being overtaken by the competition, regardless of market.”
Meanwhile, longtime Tesla bull Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities said last week the damage to the Tesla brand has now escalated into “a brand tornado crisis moment for Musk and Tesla.” He called on Musk to return to the helm of the company, of which he remains the nominal CEO.
'Not Recoverable'
I also reached out to a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, who requested anonymity to comment due to overlapping professional and social circles with Tesla backers—and had a less sanguine view. “Every other tech executive understands the levers of their business and makes choices to protect that,” this person said. “Musk seems not to have estimated the impact [his actions] would have on Tesla. It is clear his politics and political actions are not generally consistent with his customers.”
They added, “He either didn’t care about protecting his Tesla business or didn’t realize there would be this sort of backlash. Or both. I think he has done irreparable damage to the brand; I do not believe the brand is recoverable. Tesla is dead to the people who were most likely to be Tesla buyers.”
Those Who Ignore History...
Experienced auto reporters, analysts and even short-sellers have learned through painful experience not to bet against Tesla or Musk. We won't know for years if the company has run through its proverbial nine lives. Whether you personally buy a Tesla, or sell one you own, certainly remains your choice. But Tesla faces headwinds on almost every front, in ways that may put its future viability into considerable doubt.
The company’s future looks as tenuous now as it has in quite some time, perhaps since Musk had to fund payroll out of his own pocket before the Model S launch. It's hard to think of a brand that combines stale products with a toxic and highly public CEO to the same extent. The only two examples I can come up with are McAfee and MyPillow. Neither of them required anything like the multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investments necessary to succeed in the global auto industry.
So it's instructive to reach back through automotive history for lessons. One is that the companies that pioneer radical new technologies or vehicles are not necessarily those that profit in the long term from those innovations. Four-wheel hydraulic brakes were introduced in 1921 by Duesenberg. Disc brakes arrived in 1949 on Crosleys (as well as Chryslers). Gasoline direct injection, invented by Bosch, was first used on a variety of small two-stroke engines from now-vanished German makers. Breaking new ground with advanced vehicles is very hard, very time-consuming, and often not very profitable.
A favorite car-trivia question remains this one: Which company pioneered mass-market sales of transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive small cars? That revolutionary powertrain, crafted in the days when rear-engined small cars reigned supreme, was supremely space-efficient and set the template for 60 years of small cars.
The answer to the question is British Motor Corporation. It no longer exists.
BMC’s problems stemmed from a toxic stew of bad management, bad quality, and bad product decisions. Decades of executives acted in ways that proved too little, too late; no one person can be blamed for the collapse of the British mass-market car industry.
Tesla, on the other hand, is virtually the sole product of one man. Many of its earliest, and most influential executives—CTO JT Straubel, battery executive Kurt Kelty—left long ago. The decisions that led Tesla to its current circumstance seem to have been made solely by Musk.
Unless he is removed by the company’s board–which today seems highly unlikely–history will record that the ultimate fate of the greatest EV pioneer of this century rested entirely with him. For better or for worse.
John Voelcker covers advanced auto technologies and energy policy as a reporter and analyst, specializing in electric vehicles and the energy ecosystem around them. He edited Green Car Reports for nine years, and his work has appeared in Car and Driver, The Drive, Forbes Wheels, Wired, Popular Science and NPR's "All Things Considered."
