Tesla has posted some new numbers, and it’s delivered fewer cars in 2024 than in 2023. In Q4, Tesla delivered 495,930 cars globally, which is up slightly year over year, but throughout the full year, it only managed to sell 1.78 million, which is less than last year’s 1.8 million.

While it’s not a huge difference, it shows interest in Tesla is waning and the company will likely not live up to CEO Elon Musk’s promise of 50 percent growth every year.

This is Tesla’s first year-over-year delivery decline, and the company is facing increased pressure from competing EV companies like China’s BYD, which sold 1.76 million EVs in 2024 and 4.3 million vehicles in total.

Q4 2024

Production: 459,445
Deliveries: 495,570
Energy storage deployments: 11 GWh

A record for both deliveries & deployments

–

Full year 2024

Production: 1,773,443
Deliveries: 1,789,226
Energy storage deployments: 31.4 GWh

→ https://t.co/YF9iWpPuud

— Tesla (@Tesla) January 2, 2025

That being said, Tesla did post a second report detailing sales growth in China, so it might still gain more popularity overseas, where it has to compete with BYD face-to-face.

There is speculation that Tesla will launch a new low-cost EV to help spur sales growth in 2025, but for now, that’s all based on rumours. However, others say Tesla’s sales decline is based on the fact that most early adopters have already bought an EV, and the remainder of the population won’t be easily swayed by a cheaper Tesla and instead want more charging and longer ranges.

Source: Tesla

Image source: Tesla