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(Op-ed) A neutral look at Tesla’s upcoming Q1 2025 vehicle deliveries
Elon Musk affects Tesla, but his impact on the company’s raw vehicle sales may not be as notable as critics would suggest.
Tesla is such a volatile topic for many that it’s difficult to get a neutral image of the company and its fundamentals today. A look at Tesla news coverage shows this, as even dedicated electric vehicle blogs and tech publications seem to find it difficult to separate Tesla from Elon Musk, who is more polarizing than ever.
This is what I aim to cover in this op-ed. I will be exploring Tesla’s first quarter vehicle deliveries, why they might be underwhelming, the reasons behind them, and why I believe the sky is not necessarily falling.
A likely miss
Analyst consensus for Tesla’s Q1 2025 deliveries currently stands at 418,000 vehicles. That would suggest a year-over-year improvement of 8.06% from the 386,810 vehicles that Tesla was able to deliver in the first quarter of 2024. Considering Tesla’s sales in China and Europe over January and February, 418,000 deliveries seem to be a long shot for the first quarter of 2025.
It would not be surprising at all if Tesla ends up missing Wall Street’s consensus estimates, and by a pretty wide margin. Such is expected considering Tesla’s focus in the first quarter. But what is this focus, really? Elon Musk’s politics? Not necessarily.
A Model Y-shaped hole
Critics and negative Tesla news coverage would argue that the company’s steep drop in sales in several European markets and China is a sign that the company is finished, or that Elon Musk is doing global damage to the Tesla brand. However, Tesla’s sales decline this Q1 may actually be affected in no small part by the company’s transition from the Model Y classic to the new Model Y, which was launched across the United States, China, and Germany.
The Model Y is Tesla’s strongest seller, and it comprises a huge portion of the company’s deliveries every quarter. Considering that the Model Y classic quite literally became the world’s best-selling vehicle by volume in 2023 and 2024, it would not be an exaggeration to state that Tesla’s deliveries have been greatly carried by the all-electric crossover. What would happen then if Tesla implements a transition to the Model Y’s new version across its factories worldwide? Raw Model Y deliveries will go down, at least until Tesla starts deliveries of the revamped all-electric crossover. This is exactly what seems to be happening in China.
A look at Tesla China’s numbers from January and February will show that the company saw fewer registrations this year compared to last year. However, vehicle registrations have since picked up with the start of the new Model Y’s domestic deliveries. Similar trends may emerge in the United States and Europe, as well as territories supplied by Giga Shanghai, Giga Texas, the Fremont Factory, and Giga Berlin.
The Elon Musk factor
There is no doubt that Elon Musk is at his most polarizing today, but to credit Tesla’s low deliveries to the CEO’s political antics is very shortsighted. Yes, Elon Musk affects Tesla, but his impact on the company’s raw vehicle sales may not be as notable as critics would suggest. This could be seen in the results of a poll from German publication t-online, which initially concluded that 94% of Germans won’t buy a Tesla anymore. As it turned out, the survey would end up painting the complete opposite picture once more respondents took the poll. With more than 467,000 respondents on the survey, over 70% stated that they would buy a Tesla.
To state that Elon Musk’s political actions are not adversely affecting Tesla’s appeal to some consumers would not be accurate. There are evidently people who will not be purchasing a Tesla due to Elon Musk and his work with the Trump administration. The impact of the Musk factor, however, may not be as drastic as Tesla critics would suggest. It would not, for example, result in 94% of car buyers suddenly swearing off Tesla. The vast majority of consumers, after all, generally gravitate to the best products in the market, period. Assuming that this is true for most consumers today, Tesla’s vehicles definitely still have a fighting chance this year.
In conclusion
Considering Wall Street’s 418,000 vehicle delivery consensus, it almost seems certain that Tesla will miss this estimate by a notable margin. This would likely result in a wave of reports alleging that demand is drying up worldwide or Musk has completely tanked the brand’s appeal to consumers. With the new Model Y now starting its deliveries across the globe, however, Tesla’s real performance and a clearer view of Musk’s effect on the company’s demand, would likely become more evident in the coming quarters.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has provided an updated estimate for the training data needed to achieve truly safe unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD).
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
10 billion miles of training data
Musk comment came as a reply to Apple and Rivian alum Paul Beisel, who posted an analysis on X about the gap between tech demonstrations and real-world products. In his post, Beisel highlighted Tesla’s data-driven lead in autonomy, and he also argued that it would not be easy for rivals to become a legitimate competitor to FSD quickly.
“The notion that someone can ‘catch up’ to this problem primarily through simulation and limited on-road exposure strikes me as deeply naive. This is not a demo problem. It is a scale, data, and iteration problem— and Tesla is already far, far down that road while others are just getting started,” Beisel wrote.
Musk responded to Beisel’s post, stating that “Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. Reality has a super long tail of complexity.” This is quite interesting considering that in his Master Plan Part Deux, Elon Musk estimated that worldwide regulatory approval for autonomous driving would require around 6 billion miles.
FSD’s total training miles
As 2025 came to a close, Tesla community members observed that FSD was already nearing 7 billion miles driven, with over 2.5 billion miles being from inner city roads. The 7-billion-mile mark was passed just a few days later. This suggests that Tesla is likely the company today with the most training data for its autonomous driving program.
The difficulties of achieving autonomy were referenced by Elon Musk recently, when he commented on Nvidia’s Alpamayo program. As per Musk, “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.” These sentiments were echoed by Tesla VP for AI software Ashok Elluswamy, who also noted on X that “the long tail is sooo long, that most people can’t grasp it.”
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Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla emerged as one of the most recognized automakers at MotorTrend’s 2026 Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.
As could be seen in a press release from the publication, two key Tesla employees were honored for their work on AI, autonomy, and vehicle software. MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla leaders and engineers recognized
The fourth annual SDV Innovator Awards celebrate pioneers and experts who are pushing the automotive industry deeper into software-driven development. Among the most notable honorees for this year was Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, who received a Pioneer Award for his role in advancing artificial intelligence and autonomy across the company’s vehicle lineup.
Tesla also secured recognition in the Expert category, with Lawson Fulton, a staff Autopilot machine learning engineer, honored for his contributions to Tesla’s driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
Tesla’s software-first strategy
While automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Rivian also received recognition, Tesla’s multiple awards stood out given the company’s outsized role in popularizing software-defined vehicles over the past decade. From frequent OTA updates to its data-driven approach to autonomy, Tesla has consistently treated vehicles as evolving software platforms rather than static products.
This has made Tesla’s vehicles very unique in their respective sectors, as they are arguably the only cars that objectively get better over time. This is especially true for vehicles that are loaded with the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which are getting progressively more intelligent and autonomous over time. The majority of Tesla’s updates to its vehicles are free as well, which is very much appreciated by customers worldwide.
Elon Musk
Judge clears path for Elon Musk’s OpenAI lawsuit to go before a jury
The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder.
A U.S. judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding nonprofit mission can proceed to a jury trial.
The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder. These claims are directly opposed by OpenAI.
Judge says disputed facts warrant a trial
At a hearing in Oakland, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that there was “plenty of evidence” suggesting that OpenAI leaders had promised that the organization’s original nonprofit structure would be maintained. She ruled that those disputed facts should be evaluated by a jury at a trial in March rather than decided by the court at this stage, as noted in a Reuters report.
Musk helped co-found OpenAI in 2015 but left the organization in 2018. In his lawsuit, he argued that he contributed roughly $38 million, or about 60% of OpenAI’s early funding, based on assurances that the company would remain a nonprofit dedicated to the public benefit. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages tied to what he describes as “ill-gotten gains.”
OpenAI, however, has repeatedly rejected Musk’s allegations. The company has stated that Musk’s claims were baseless and part of a pattern of harassment.
Rivalries and Microsoft ties
The case unfolds against the backdrop of intensifying competition in generative artificial intelligence. Musk now runs xAI, whose Grok chatbot competes directly with OpenAI’s flagship ChatGPT. OpenAI has argued that Musk is a frustrated commercial rival who is simply attempting to slow down a market leader.
The lawsuit also names Microsoft as a defendant, citing its multibillion-dollar partnerships with OpenAI. Microsoft has urged the court to dismiss the claims against it, arguing there is no evidence it aided or abetted any alleged misconduct. Lawyers for OpenAI have also pushed for the case to be thrown out, claiming that Musk failed to show sufficient factual basis for claims such as fraud and breach of contract.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers, however, declined to end the case at this stage, noting that a jury would also need to consider whether Musk filed the lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. Still, the dispute between Elon Musk and OpenAI is now headed for a high-profile jury trial in the coming months.
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
