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FILE – Tesla vehicles line a parking lot at the company’s Fremont, Calif., factory on Aug. 5, 2025.<\/p>\n
Noah Berger\/AP Photo\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Tesla car sales surged in the past three months in a possible sign damage from a customer revolt over Elon Musk and boycotts are mostly behind it.<\/p>\n
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The electric vehicle maker run by Musk reported Thursday that it delivered 480,126 cars to customers, a jump of 25% over the 384,122 figure a year ago when many Europeans refused to buy his cars because of his embrace of far-right political candidates there.<\/p>\n
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The second-quarter sales, the second straight gain in a row, also came in much higher than the 401,000 that Wall Street analysts had been expecting, according to a FactSet survey.<\/p>\n
It’s a big turnaround from just a few months ago when Tesla reported sales had fallen in 2025 for a second year in a row and it had to yield its crown as the world’s largest EV maker to China’s BYD.<\/p>\n
Tesla\u2019s stock fell sharply in midday trading Thursday, down 6%, an odd development that Seth Goldstein of Morningstar attributed possibly to profit-taking by investors after a recent run-up in its shares.<\/p>\n
For the second-quarter figures, the company didn’t break out results by country, but an earlier report from European trade groups reported big sales increases in Europe in May, including a 300% rise in Germany.<\/p>\n
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The Austin, Texas, company introduced cheaper Model Y and Model 3 models last year in hopes of boosting sales. In Europe, it also cut the cost of leasing and loans. Sales were also helped by a surge of EV buying in general on the continent as gas and diesel prices have risen due to the Iran war.<\/p>\n
For future quarters, Tesla hopes to lure even more Europeans as countries approve use of its driver assistance feature, available in the U.S., called Full Self-Driving (Supervised). The Netherlands approved the system in April, followed by Estonia, Greece and Lithuania.<\/p>\n
Sales fell last year amid protests at showrooms in Europe and the U.S., a Musk figure burned effigy in Milan and vandalism against Tesla drivers. Customers were angry about him publicly supporting far-right political candidates in elections. In the U.S., too, many of Tesla’s traditional buyers stopped buying because of Musk’s work heading a Trump administration group cutting government spending.<\/p>\n
Tesla was also hurt in the U.S. by the elimination of a tax break for buying electric vehicles in the fall last year, which added as much as $7,500 to EV costs. That is still keeping EV buyers away even as gas prices have risen.<\/p>\n
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Tesla sales in the U.S. weren’t broken out in the latest report, but research firm Cox Automotive estimates they are still falling fast, down 20% in the second quarter from the year earlier period.<\/p>\n
Amid Tesla struggles last year, Musk managed to shift the narrative about Tesla’s future away from its car business to its robots, automated driving system and self-driving robotaxis.<\/p>\n
Judging from the stock price, investors approve. Shares have fully recovered from a deep dive early last year, rocketing more than 40% in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
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Business Writer Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Tesla vehicles line a parking lot at the company’s Fremont, Calif., factory on Aug. 5, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":907953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,367392,359,69,66,440,83,184754,184755,184749,184750,184751,184752,7202,7203,148852,367391,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-907952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-ap-test","tag-austin","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-europe","tag-iran","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-seth-goldstein","tag-tesla-musk-byd-sales-deliveries-europe","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}