In recent years, Tesla has been the face of American electric vehicles. However, after CEO Elon Musk’s foray into politics, the company’s popularity took a plunge. Musk may have pulled back on his political activities, but according to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s sales have not recovered as of the second quarter of 2025 — despite a rerelease of the Model Y with a refreshed design.
What’s happening?
The Model Y is Tesla’s best-selling vehicle, accounting for about two-thirds of the company’s car sales, Wired revealed. But last year, it lost its spot as the world’s top-selling vehicle to a Toyota. This is in line with plummeting sales at Tesla overall.
Musk likely hoped to rejuvenate his sales figures with a revamp of the Model Y, which was released in January. However, that effort has been unsuccessful. Tesla’s sales fell 9% in the first quarter and almost 15% year over year in the second quarter.
Although Tesla does not release specific sales figures for individual regions or models of vehicles, Wired has made some educated guesses about Model Y sales based on the experience of buyers.
Where past buyers had quite a long wait for their new vehicles when sales were doing well, recent buyers have received their new Model Y units almost immediately, even though Tesla’s factories are not operating at full capacity. That suggests the car is simply not doing well, possibly because the changes have been minimal and purely cosmetic.
The Model Y «is not a new car,» according to Jay Nagley from automotive consultancy Redspy, as quoted by Wired. «It’s a heavy facelift. If it doesn’t look new, then people don’t think it’s new. You can’t order people to think differently; not even Elon Musk can do that.»
Why is Tesla’s performance important?
Ultimately, the performance of a single automaker is not the full picture of EV sales in the U.S. Sales are slightly down this year, but only by 6.3%, per Wired. That’s a number that could easily bounce back.
That’s a good thing because EVs are a huge part of the puzzle when it comes to eliminating heat-trapping air pollution on our planet. The Earth’s rising temperature has reached a crisis point, and we need to clean up our atmosphere in order to stop the overheating. Switching to electric instead of gas is one of the best ways to reduce our personal negative impact on the planet.
What’s being done about electric car sales?
In the international market, there are many alternatives to Tesla. China, in particular, is seeing an incredibly innovative market with a turnaround time of 18 months for new models. Many of these EVs use superior technology at a lower price point.
In America, the pickings are slimmer, but there are still many solid choices if you want to drive a car that is less expensive to fuel and easier on the environment. And those options will only continue to multiply.