Tesla (TSLA) delivery consensus from Wall Street is still at 418,000 electric vehicles in Q1 2025, but they are dreaming.
Deliveries are currently tracking about 40,000 units lower.
Tesla delivered just short of 387,000 vehicles in Q1 2024 and 1.8 million vehicles in 2024—the automaker’s first year of deliveries being down since it achieved high-volume production.
Now, analysts are wondering if deliveries are going down for Tesla in 2025.
Wall Street has been quite optimistic so far. The Wall Street delivery consensus for Tesla’s Q1 2025 started the year at 464,000 deliveries, which is slightly down from Q4 2024, but it is up a massive 20% year-over-year.
However, analysts have been gradually updating their estimates, and the consensus is now it sits at 418,000 deliveries, which would still be up 8% over Q1 2024.
That’s surprisingly high for anyone who has been watching Tesla closely this quarter since deliveries have been tracking below Q1 2024.
As of the end of February, Tesla is down roughly 43% in Europe – or about 20,000 units behind Q1 2024. In China, Tesla is trailing about 7,000 units behind where it was last year.
The data is more opaque in the US, but S&P data just released some data based on vehicle registration for January in the US, and Tesla is down 11% or about 4,000 units.
If you have been doing the math, it means that available data shows that Tesla is about 31,000 units behind where it was last quarter in its 3 main markets – with a few weeks left to report in China, a month in Europe, and two months in the US, to be fair.
31,000 units lower than 387,000 would mean 356,000 deliveries in Q1 2025, but there’s obviously still time for Tesla to either catch up or fall further behind.
Wall Street analysts are notoriously slower to update their numbers, but some have been catching up this week.
Guggenheim updated its delivery estimate from 405,000 deliveries to 358,000 units in Q1 2025 today.
JP Morgan also updated its delivery estimate from 444,000 to 355,000 in an update shared with clients today.
Both these firms have bearish outlooks on Tesla’s stock.
Morgan Stanley is one of the most bullish firms on Tesla, and they also came out with a new note today reiterating an overweight rating on Tesla’ stock. Analyst Adam Jonas says that he still sees Tesla’s volume growing 7%, which would put deliveries at 414,000 units this quarter.
As for prediction market Kalshi, which creates estimates based on people betting on Tesla’s delivery results, the estimate currently sits at 324,000 deliveries:
It’s fair to say that delivery predictions for Tesla’s Q1 2025 are currently quite all over the place.
Electrek’s Take
I am sure that the Wall Street consensus will come down by the end of the month because it is incredibly inflated right now.
It should at least be under Q1 2024.
On the other hand, I think the prediction market on Kalshi is probably overly pessimistic, but it’s also not impossible.
Top comment by Spec9
I keep saying it over and over again. The analysts are not sufficiently taking into account the Elon toxicity and brand damage.
I kind of understand why they don't...it is extremely hard to quantify. It is not like increased raw material prices, different interest rates, more threatening competition, vehicle specs, etc. It is a subjective viewpoint among the main customer base not to support this company because of the behavior of the CEO.
But I really think they are missing the story big time.
Many of the people at those Tesla protests ARE TESLA OWNERS (or former owners if they sold their Tesla). These are the folks that could have been repeat buyers AND they are the influencers that help less tech savvy people pick out an EV. That can be very bad for Tesla.
Tesla’s US sales this month are a bit of a mystery and they probably didn’t look good if Elon resorted to giving Trump another $100 million and having him do an informercial for the company at the White House.
We have more data coming from insurance registration in China in the coming weeks that should give us a pretty good idea.
Tesla certainly needs to ramp up deliveries of the new Model Y in China in the coming weeks. Otherwise, the Kalshi prediction could become accurate.
What do you think? What’s your prediction for Tesla in Q1 2025? For now, I think it is undoubtedly below 380,000 units and no less than 350,000 units.
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