Elon Musk
Tesla continues California domination despite slide in registrations
Tesla lost some of its market share in California but it still has a commanding lead.
Tesla has continued its domination in the California auto market as the state’s New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA) has released data from the first quarter of 2025.
2025 is going to be one of the more difficult years to determine the outlook of the automotive sector due to the uncertain impact of tariffs and how much they will hinder overall growth.
However, we can break Tesla’s situation down a little further and explain why there were some Year-over-Year declines in registrations in California.
As a whole, Tesla registered 42,322 vehicles year-to-date through March, data from the CNCDA’s report shows. This is a 15.1 percent decrease from the 49,857 cars that had been registered by owners in the same time frame last year.
Tesla still owns 43.9 percent of the overall Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEV) segment in California, down from 55.5 percent at this point last year. It is a decrease, but there is more to it.
The Top 25 BEV and PHEV models are led by the Model Y and Model 3, which counted 23,314 and 13,992 registrations, respectively. The third-place vehicle is the Honda Prologue with 4,493 registrations. The Tesla Cybertruck landed in 8th place with 2,282 registrations, and the Model X was 13th with 1,800.
The same quarter last year saw roughly 10,000 more registrations for the Model Y than this year, as Q1’24 saw the all-electric crossover accumulate 33,467 registrations. The decrease is due to Tesla’s switchover of production lines to the new Model Y build. Tesla said in its quarterly delivery report that it lost “several weeks” of production due to this changeover.
Tesla dominates in California but EV growth is the true winner
Interestingly, the Model 3 performed better than last year, as it only had 11,162 registrations through the same period in 2024. It had 13,992 registrations in California this year.
The question regarding Elon Musk’s political involvement and its impact on Tesla’s sales figures remains. Without surveying them individually, there is no way of knowing exactly how many people chose to go with another EV maker’s vehicle due to the politics. However, the Model 3’s slight bump is an encouraging look: it’s not all gloom and doom.
The CNCDA writes:
“Tesla’s troubles continue to worsen as Californians are giving the cold shoulder to the direct-to-consumer automaker (and controversial owner, Elon Musk). Registrations show a massive decline of 15.1 percent through March vs. this time last year. A year and a half of continuous quarterly declines proves this downward trajectory for Tesla is a lasting trend. The company’s market share also dropped by 11.6 percent at the end of Q1, now holding less than half of the California Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) market for the year.”
Most importantly, Tesla outpaced every other EV maker’s registration figures by a considerable margin, despite many analysts stating that there is irreparable brand damage.
Tesla had 42,322 registrations in California in Q1, significantly more than second-place Ford, which had 5,819 ZEV registrations in the Golden State through the first three months.
Despite what many are stating regarding Tesla’s “brand damage,” the company is still in control of the market substantially. It was always expected that Tesla’s market share, which sits at 43.9 percent, would fall slightly each quarter after more automakers had EVs to offer.
However, the company’s control still remains, at least for now.
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim level is nearing its first deliveries just a few months after being offered for an incredible deal.
Back in February, Tesla officially launched a new trim of the Cybertruck, the All-Wheel-Drive, starting at just $59,990. It was a lot of truck for the money, especially considering what it offered the Rear-Wheel-Drive variant for last year, which was a total flop.
The $59,990 price that was offered initially was a deal due to its 325-mile range rating, powered tonneau, three bed outlets, Powershare capability, coil springs with adaptive damping for a refined suspension feel, Steer-by-Wire and four-wheel steering, a 6′ x 4′ composite bed, towing capacity of 7,500 pounds, and a powered frunk.
Tesla is now nearing deliveries of this trim, according to watcher Sawyer Merritt, as Tesla has officially started assigning VINs to people who ordered the vehicle initially:
I can confirm that Tesla has officially started assigning VINs to people who initially ordered the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual-Motor AWD, which means first deliveries should start in the coming weeks!
• 325 mile range
• 7,500 lb towing capacity
• 0-60mph: 4.1s
• Bed with… pic.twitter.com/PQwVYbZf6j— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 24, 2026
Earlier this month, we reported on units of the trim being spotted outside Gigafactory Texas by Joe Tegtmeyer.
Tesla Giga Texas buzzing as new Cybertruck appears to enter production
This Cybertruck trim was interesting because it was released basically out of nowhere, priced incredibly well, and gathered many orders in a small amount of time. However, CEO Elon Musk noted just days afterward that the vehicle would only be priced at this bargain level for ten days.
Tesla fans were not happy.
Awful way to treat customers – particularly when they already sent out a marketing email announcing the $59,990 truck…with zero mention of it being a limited-time offer.
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) February 24, 2026
However, the issues with the pricing strategy have blown over since the February unveiling event, and now that deliveries are near, Tesla fans are anticipating the truck making its way to their driveways soon.
The truck is currently priced at $69,990, and deliveries for new orders are slated for between August and September 2026.
NASA has filed a procurement notice announcing its intent to add six post-certification missions to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. The agency said it would order up to three of those missions immediately upon adding them to the contract, with the remaining three available as needed through the end of the International Space Station’s planned operations in 2030.
The reason for the expansion is straightforward. NASA cited recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable crew transportation capability as the driving factors behind the decision. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not been certified for crewed flights, and a cargo-only Starliner mission was not included on NASA’s most recent mission manifest. With Boeing effectively sidelined for the foreseeable future, SpaceX is the only American company capable of rotating crews to the station.
The history behind this contract tells the fuller story of how SpaceX got here. NASA originally awarded SpaceX its Commercial Crew contract in 2014 for $2.6 billion. In 2022 NASA modified the contract to add five missions covering Crew-10 through Crew-14, worth $1.436 billion, bringing the total contract value at that point to $4.9 billion. The recent May 18 filing by NASA extends that runway further, with Crew-12 currently docked at the station and Crew-13 assigned and targeting a mid-September 2026 launch.
According to a report by SpaceNews, NASA stated in its filing: “It is necessary to award additional PCMs to SpaceX given the recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, NASA’s projections for when an alternative crew transportation system may become available, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable capability for crewed flights to ISS.”
No dollar value for the new six missions has been publicly confirmed yet, but based on the 2022 precedent of roughly $287 million per mission, the new block could represent close to $1.7 billion in additional contract value. With SpaceX simultaneously preparing Starship as NASA’s Artemis lunar lander, filing its S-1 for a June IPO, and now absorbing more ISS crew rotation work, the company’s role as the primary contractor for American human spaceflight is no longer a matter of circumstance. It is NASA policy.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Starship V3 reached space, survived reentry, and proved it can fly with engines out.
After two scrubbed attempts, SpaceX launched Starship V3 on Friday, May 22 from the brand new Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, completing the most technically complex test flight the program has attempted and moving the bar in ways that matter for everything from commercial satellites to the first human Moon landing since 1972.
The Super Heavy booster lost an engine early during ascent and several more failed during its boostback burn, sending the stage into an off-nominal descent that ended in a hard landing in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had planned a soft splashdown rather than a tower catch on this first V3 flight, so losing the booster was expected to be acceptable within the test parameters.
Ship 39 told a different story. The Starship upper stage reached its planned sub-orbital trajectory despite losing one of its vacuum Raptor engines, with the remaining engines compensating for the loss and keeping the vehicle on course. The spacecraft then survived atmospheric reentry, completed its belly-flip maneuver, and made a controlled upright splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Watch Starship’s twelfth flight test https://t.co/caRB1thMlg
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 22, 2026
The payload test is where Flight 12 separated itself from every previous Starship mission. SpaceX deployed 22 objects including 20 Starlink simulator satellites sized like next-generation V3 Starlink units, plus two specially modified satellites equipped with cameras that scanned Starship’s heat shield from orbit and transmitted imagery back to operators.
The broader significance of what was tested on Friday goes well beyond one mission. Every future Starship deployment, whether it is a batch of operational Starlink V3 satellites, cargo bound for the Moon, or eventually crew headed to Mars, depends on SpaceX being able to inspect and certify the heat shield quickly between flights. The camera-equipped satellites deployed on Flight 12 are the first step toward making that inspection process automated and data-driven rather than manual and time-consuming. If SpaceX can scan the heat shield from orbit after every reentry and flag damaged or missing tiles before the vehicle even lands, it fundamentally changes the turnaround time between flights. For a program that needs to refuel Starship in orbit using ten or more tanker launches before a single Moon mission can depart, launch cadence is everything. Friday’s payload test can be seen as building the maintenance infrastructure for rapid reusability.
Elon Musk took to X, following the successful tests, and noting: “Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch and landing!” “You scored a goal for humanity.”
The stakes behind that goal are concrete. NASA has selected Starship as the Human Landing System for Artemis IV, targeting a crewed Moon landing in 2028, and SpaceX has yet to demonstrate a full orbital flight, in-orbit refueling, or docking with an Orion capsule. Flight 12 proved V3 can fly, survive reentry, and deploy payloads under engine-out conditions. That is the foundation everything else has to be built on, and with a SpaceX IPO targeting June 2026, the timing of that proof of concept could not have been more useful.
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