Elon Musk’s inability to deliver on his promise for even the slimmest margin of growth in Tesla vehicle sales in 2024 doesn’t exactly bode well for his $1.3 trillion company as it embarks on its most crucial year yet.
Thanks to a panoply of milestone targets he’s already issued, the world’s richest man has amassed a laundry list of goals he must achieve in 2025 to prop up Tesla’s lofty market value.
Rather than start the new year off on a strong note, however, shares slumped on the first trading day after the nearly half million cars and trucks Tesla handed over to customers fell short of the 515,000 it needed, despite numerous incentives.
As a result, Musk’s repeated promise the company would at the very minimum still manage to grow volumes in 2024 proved too much for an entrepreneur otherwise spoiled with success. In late January, Tesla cautioned it wouldn’t be able to repeat the 38% increase from the previous year as it worked on a new low-cost entry model. That still left hope for plenty of double-digit growth, though.
Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives acknowledged the market was disappointed by the first annual sales decline in the company’s history, but argued the quarterly delivery figure is relatively meaningless as the long-term investment thesis shifts from selling car ownership to providing autonomous taxi rides with the help of onboard artificial intelligence.
“Any selloff today on weaker 4Q delivery numbers we are strong buyers,” Ives recommended to clients.
Raft of new vehicles slated for the first half
At press time, Tesla stock had slid nearly 7%, after the 1.79 million Teslas delivered failed to equal the all-time-best of 1.81 million sold in 2023. Not only has China’s BYD now all but eliminated the gap between itself and the industry leader, this suggests the 20% to 30% sales growth Musk predicted in October for the current year could likewise be in danger.
“Imagine Tesla sales once it loses the $7,500 discount,” warned Ross Gerber, head of Gerber Kawasaki investment fund, referring to Trump’s plans to eliminate the federal tax credit for EVs. “It only gets harder from here.”
On the high end of Musk’s 2025 forecast, Tesla would have to sell 2.35 million new vehicles at a time when its current range is long in the tooth. To achieve that, Musk planned to reinvigorate demand through the launch of new vehicles Tesla first flagged all the way back in April.
Chief among them is the facelift of the crucial Model Y, the crossover responsible for roughly two out of every three Teslas sold worldwide. Code-named “Juniper,” it is expected to feature some of the styling cues and interior additions found earlier in the refresh of its sibling Model 3 “Highland” sedan.
Another vehicle on the to-do list for this year is the Semi. This commercial big rig officially debuted over two years ago, but it was really more of a soft launch with only a few dozen on the road; 2025 is supposed to finally be the year that Tesla revolutionizes the freight market after investments were made into the Nevada factory where it will run off the assembly line.
The second-generation Roadster is also slated to hit markets in 2025 after years of delays. “There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car,” Musk said in February, promising an unveiling before the end of December. The latter deadline came and went this week without so much as a single word from the CEO.
The major question mark when it comes to sales, however, is the as-yet-unnamed entry model many expect to retail at around $25,000 (although Tesla has not confirmed that price recently).
Last spring, Musk restored flagging faith in Tesla’s growth story by revising its second-half 2025 introduction so that it would launch in the first six months. Yet nothing thus far has been revealed about this low-cost model, even as Tesla already teased the Cybercab tipped to arrive as early as next year.
Musk promises unsupervised FSD will finally launch in Texas this year
Missing any of these targets would likely be forgiven by investors so long as Musk finally delivers on the promise he made for Full Self-Driving. This April, it will be six years since his infamous prediction of a million Tesla robotaxis on the streets in 2020, each autonomously earning their owners $30,000 annually in passive income by collecting fares.
Ever since, Musk has remained steadfast that his AI team would find the solution in a matter of months, only to push back the date after the release of another FSD software update that failed to live up to his original promise.
This time, however, Musk funneled billions of dollars into the construction of a vast new AI training center next to his Texas factory grounds, dubbed the Cortex, which he is endowing with tens of thousands of Nvidia chips.
That appears to have given him enough confidence to state he would proceed with the launch of unsupervised FSD in Texas this year and possibly even California, should regulators play along.
“Texas is a lot faster so we’ll definitely have it available in Texas,” he said in October, adding “maybe some other states actually next year as well, but at least California and Texas.”
Tesla’s share price enjoyed an epic final three months in 2024 thanks predominantly to Musk’s prescient “all-in” bet to support Donald Trump’s ultimately successful bid for the presidency.
Not only did it renew faith in the uncanny ability of Musk to capitalize on technological trends earlier than his competitors, investors are banking on the incoming administration to create a Tesla-friendly regulatory path for autonomous driving.
Wedbush’s Ives argued a Trump White House would breathe life into Musk’s robotaxi plans. “We believe Tesla remains the most undervalued AI play in the market today,” he wrote.
With profits slated to rebound only somewhat this year, however, that is a bold call. Just two weeks ago Tesla shares hit a record $488, giving it a market cap greater than the entire auto industry combined. Even after today’s slump, it is still valued at well over 100 times estimated 2025 consensus earnings.
