- Tesla shared its delivery forecasts with Wall Street on its investor relations website.
- Analysts expect a sharp year-over-year decline in fourth-quarter and annual deliveries.
- However, they expect Tesla sales to nearly double by the end of the decade.
As 2025 draws to a close, automakers are expected to release their sales figures for the fourth quarter and the full year in the coming days and weeks.
But in an unusual way, Tesla shared its fourth-quarter sales estimates on Wall Street, as well as sales forecasts through the end of the decade, on its Investor Relations. Website A few days before publishing its official sales figures.
The automaker shared what it called a “corporate consensus delivery consensus for sell-side analysts,” sharing sales estimates from up to 20 financial firms, including Wedbush Securities, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Wells Fargo and HSBC. The numbers paint a picture of a difficult year for America’s dominant electric car company.
Photography: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs
According to estimates, Tesla’s global deliveries for the fourth quarter of 2025 will fall about 15% year over year to 422,850, from 495,570 during the same period last year. Despite the company’s efforts to roll out some new metals and get discounts like free Supercharging, Tesla is on track for another year of declining global sales as well.
Analysts expect full-year Tesla deliveries worldwide to decline 8.3% year over year to 1.64 million units, down from 1.79 million in 2024 and 1.81 million in 2023.
This is not very surprising. Analysts have long expected industry-wide electric vehicle sales to decline in the fourth quarter after the Trump administration eliminated the $7,500 federal tax credit and significantly revised federal fuel economy standards. Electric vehicle sales growth has slowed overall, even before incentives were cut. Tesla was suffering from an outdated model lineup.
In addition, Tesla delivered approx Half a million electric cars in the third quarter of this yearas buyers rushed to claim the tax credit before it expired. So the previous quarter stole sales from the current quarter. On top of that, there’s the “Elon Effect,” which has seen Tesla customers defect from the brand in droves this year.
That’s not all. Tesla also shared analysts’ forecasts through 2029. They don’t expect the company to surpass its all-time high in 2023 until 2027.
Photo by: Tesla
The companies expect Tesla deliveries to grow 6.6% to 1.75 million in 2026, reaching 2.0 million in 2027, 2.35 million in 2028 and more than 3.0 million in 2029. This is a far cry from some of Tesla’s previous growth forecasts. For years, it has targeted sales of 20 million vehicles in 2030. It has quietly dropped that number from its overall plans.
There’s also the very broad “standard deviation” measure that Tesla added into these forecasts. This means that analysts have different estimates on how Tesla will grow. For example, the standard deviation of deliveries for 2029 is roughly 1 million units, which means some analysts are very optimistic, others have modest growth estimates and their guesses are very far apart.
But overall, Wall Street seems to agree that Tesla’s growth story will continue. Officially, this growth depends on Cybercab. The sleek two-door robotaxi with scissor doors and no steering wheel is scheduled to begin production in April 2026.
Beyond that, Tesla hasn’t announced any new full-size models for the future. He – she An affordable $25,000 EV has been cancelled Last year to focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. Newly launched Model Y is standard and Form 3 standard They are just hackneyed copies of existing cars. They don’t appear to have boosted Q4 sales In any meaningful way. The Roadster supercar is clearly still on the way, but it doesn’t have mass appeal.
Tesla upset a SUV and truck inspired by the former Cybertruck This year it is on its fourth master plan. But given the collapse in Cybertruck sales this year, it’s unclear whether the automaker will go ahead with those plans.
Instead, Tesla is betting its future on automated robots and robotaxis. Some taxis are now operating in San Francisco and Austin, but at very limited capacity and with human safety monitors on board. CEO Elon Musk He said Earlier this year, Tesla will have 500 robotaxis in Austin and about 1,000 in San Francisco by the end of this year.
according to Robotaxi Trackerwhich uses crowd-sourced data, there are only 35 Model Ys driving around Austin and about 129 around the Bay Area as of this writing. Simply put, Tesla’s robotaxi rollout is going much slower than expected.
The company aims to expand quickly into more cities, and this is where the Cybercab will come in. But because they don’t meet federal motor vehicle safety standards, Tesla would need a regulatory change in the U.S. to deploy more than 2,500 of them a year. Its underlying technology is also unproven. It began testing empty cars in Austin this month, while industry leader Waymo has handled about 14 million self-driving trips this year.
Photo by: Tesla
For Tesla deliveries to start growing rapidly again in the coming years, the company will need to make major advances in autonomous driving or exciting new models that can help restore some of its long-lost magic.
Do you have any advice? Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
