Wall Street analysts and investors are reining in expectations for one of their longtime darlings, Tesla. Analysts now say Tesla’s deliveries will continue to fall due to waning demand and President Trump’s promise to kill off federal incentives for electric vehicles.
Oppenheimer, an analysis company, cut their delivery estimates for both 2025 and 2026, partially blaming weak demand in China and Europe. It now expects Tesla to hand over 1.63 million vehicles in 2025, according to Bloomberg. That would work out to being Tesla’s second straight year of decline. Goldman Sachs analysts also cut their estimates for second-quarter deliveries from 410,000 units to just 365,000 units. That is quite a drop, but it’s not unexpected.
CEO Elon Musk has been doing just about everything he can to ruin Tesla’s reputation among people on both sides of the political aisle. Since the Summer of last year, Musk has been a staunch supporter of President Trump and his politics while giving his campaign over a quarter billion dollars — alienating folks on the left who helped build Tesla into the massive success it is. However, he must have felt that not enough people hated him. That’s why, last week, he alienated Trump’s supporters during a wild exit from the White House, claiming Trump was in Jefferey Epstein’s files and doing everything in his power to kill Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
A bad time for Tesler
Tesla has had a rather brutal start to 2025, which built off the rough 2024 it suffered. Last year, the Austin, Texas–based automaker failed to grow in annual deliveries for the first time in a decade as Musk turned off more and more people and other, better, alternatives hit the market from legacy and startup automakers alike.
In 2025, things are even worse with the general public’s dislike for Musk in full focus as well as production line shutdowns to make room for the updated Model Y. In the first four months of 2025, Tesla’s sales dropped by about 18,700 vehicles — a 9.7% decrease from the same time a year ago, Bloomberg reported.
I don’t know what will turn Tesla around, but if I had to bet, Elon Musk’s long-promised Robotaxi won’t be it despite the fact he says it’s actually coming in limited numbers sometime this week. If you’re in Austin, Texas, be on the lookout for a “self-driving Tesla.” It could sneak up on you when you least expect it.
