Tesla’s Sales Are Still Dropping All Around The World

Happy Wednesday! It’s November 26, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at Tesla’s unending downward slide, as well as its continued investment in small-scale robotaxi services instead of, y’know, selling cars. We’ll also look at next year’s Audi Q3 pricing, and what Japanese auto workers want from their next union contract. 

Tesla is still, ostensibly, a car company. Sure, a car company with a market cap that vastly outstrips its actual underlying financials, but a car company nonetheless. Elon Musk seems to no longer care about this, though, because his mind is stuck on robots and AI — exploits that help the company’s share prices, but not its sales. From Reuters:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has spent much of this year focused on the carmaker’s robotics pursuits and winning shareholder approval for his freshly minted $1 trillion pay package. In the meantime, the outlook for Tesla’s main business – selling cars – is darkening.

Tesla faces sales pressure in the world’s three biggest car markets: Europe, China and the United States. The electric-vehicle maker’s sales fell 48.5% across Europe in October versus the same month last year, according to data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association on Tuesday. For the year, its sales are down about 30% in the region, while industrywide EV sales jumped 26%.

Tesla’s global vehicle deliveries are expected to decline 7% this year, according to Visible Alpha, after a 1% drop in 2024. That is despite record third-quarter deliveries, which were juiced by American car buyers racing to beat the September 30 expiration of an EV tax credit.

Turns out, car buyers aren’t huge on buying dated, cheaply built cars sold to them by someone with wildly right-wing beliefs. Who knew!

At least Tesla is attempting to marry its CEO’s latest whim with the underlying business, in the form of robotaxis. The company has a few circling San Francisco and a few more lurking in Austin — though that latter number is set to increase. From Reuters:

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that the number of robotaxis in Austin, Texas, will double in December, following the rollout of its self-driving service in the city in June.

“The Tesla Robotaxi fleet in Austin should roughly double next month,” Musk said in a post on X, which is also owned by him.

It is not immediately clear how many robotaxis Tesla operates.

Of course, the announcement here is just a tweet from Musk, which could mean nothing. Or, it could mean everything, because the CEO’s Twitter account is the closest thing Tesla has to a communications department. 

Audi has a new Q3 for 2026, marking the third generation of a car that was truly inescapable last time I visited my hometown. Seriously, these things are everywhere in New England. It remains to be see, though, whether that popularity survives the latest change Audi is making to its compact crossover for the upcoming model year: A price bump. From Automotive News:

Audi of America has pared down the Q3 compact crossover lineup in the U.S. as part of a redesign but also significantly raised the starting price.

The 2026 third-generation Q3 will be offered in one trim: S Line. Audi offered two trims on the Q3, Premium and Premium Plus, for the 2025 model year.

U.S. pricing now starts at $44,995, an increase of $3,900 over the Premium trim’s starting price of $41,095 and $1,100 over the starting price of $43,895 for the Premium Plus. All prices include shipping.

Prices on everything are climbing, but cars are especially hard-hit by tariffs. Compact crossovers often use price as a selling point, so it’ll be interesting to see how this affects Q3 sales going forward. 

Japanese metalworkers are coming up on a new round of union negotiations, and the unions’ trade group has indicated what it wants for its workers: A raise of $77 per month. Yep, less than 80 bucks. From Reuters:

A Japanese labour union group representing major manufacturers said on Wednesday that it would seek an increase of at least 12,000 yen ($77) in monthly base pay for next year, the same target as this year.

The Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions (JCM) is considered a pace-setter for annual wage negotiations and represents about 2 million workers for blue-chip companies including Toyota Motor and Nippon Steel.

The increase in base pay, which excludes seniority-based annual hikes already built into the pay scale, is crucial to Japan’s stated goal of achieving sustainable wage growth exceeding the pace of inflation.

Now, I’m just a humble New York City automotive journalist with a degree in business, but less than $80 per month seems extremely reasonable. That should be doable. Don’t make a whole thing of this, companies. 

Someday I’ll see this movie. 

I’ve been listening to a lot of Purity Ring recently. They’re one of those bands where I never really ask that their sound evolve, I’m always happy to just get more Purity Ring that sounds like other Purity Ring I’ve heard.