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.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shares big Tesla Optimus 3 production update
According to Musk, Tesla is in the final stages of completing Optimus 3, which he described as one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that production of Optimus 3 could begin this summer. Musk shared the update in his interview at the Abundance Summit.
According to Musk, Tesla is in the final stages of completing Optimus 3, which he described as one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots.
“We’re in the final stages of completion of Optimus 3, which is really going to be by far the most advanced robot in the world. Nothing’s even close. In fact, I haven’t even seen demos of robots that are as good as Optimus 3,” Musk said.
He also set expectations on the pace of Optimus 3’s production ramp, stating that the initial volumes of the humanoid robot will likely be very low. Musk did, however, also state that high production rates for Optimus 3 should be possible in 2027.
“I think we’ll start production on Optimus 3 this summer, but very slow at first, like sort of this classic S-curve ramp of manufacturing units versus time. And then, probably reach high volume production around summer next year,” he said.
Interestingly enough, the CEO hinted that Tesla is looking to iterate on the robot quickly, potentially releasing a new Optimus design every year.
“We’ll have Optimus 4 design complete next year. We’ll try to release a new robot design every year,” Musk stated.
Tesla has already outlined broader plans for scaling Optimus production beyond its first manufacturing line. Musk previously stated that Optimus 4 will be built at Gigafactory Texas at significantly higher production volumes.
Initial production lines for the robot are expected to be located at Tesla’s Fremont Factory, where the company plans to establish a line capable of producing up to 1 million robots per year.
A larger production ramp is expected to occur at Gigafactory Texas, where Musk has previously suggested could eventually support production of up to 10 million robots per year.
“We’re going to launch on the fastest production ramp of any product of any large complex manufactured product ever, starting with building a one-million-unit production line in Fremont. And that’s Line one. And then a ten million unit per year production line here,” Musk said previously.
The comments suggest that while Optimus 3 will likely begin production at Fremont, Tesla’s larger-scale manufacturing push could arrive with Optimus 4 at Gigafactory Texas.