Tesla hasn’t been doing well for a while now. It’s not just the stagnant ageing line-up and the series of big flop projects that have caused this, but also Musk’s ignorant autocratic leadership and his countless broken bullshit promises, as well as his utterly moronic political ambitions. No company can last long under this combined weight, and Tesla’s 2025 Q3 earnings reports prove it has one foot in the grave. However, you wouldn’t know that if you listened to the media, as almost all reports appear to have left out critical context. Because yes, Tesla’s profits are seriously declining, but no one is talking about what that means for Tesla’s future. And yes, deliveries are up, but nowhere near enough. So, let’s dive in.
Deliveries
Let’s start with the deliveries. Every article I have read on this Q3 report uses the fact that deliveries are up as a foil to the fact that profits are down. It’s always a “yes, but.” And, on the surface, the fact that Tesla delivered 462,890 vehicles in Q3 2025, a 7.4% increase from 2024 Q3, seems like a step in the right direction. But this lacks two crucial pieces of context.
A combination of EV tax breaks set to end soon and a series of newer, cheaper and more capable EVs flooding the market has increased US EV sales. Indeed, many reports point to this being the reason why Tesla’s sales jumped. However, total EV sales in the US grew by 40.7% in Q3 2025, compared to Q3 2024, which is far, far more than Tesla’s pitiful 7.4%. With this rapid market growth, we can see that in real terms, Tesla sales are 33.3% below what they should be.
And, when I say “should be”, I mean where investors expect them to be. One of the main reasons Tesla has been valued so highly is because investors expected Tesla to keep its substantial market share as the EV market expanded. But the opposite is happening.
Also, notice how Tesla mentioned deliveries and not sales? While this is common practice for Tesla, it is nonetheless worrying in this context, considering we know Musk is “delivering” unsold Cybertrucks by the truckload to SpaceX and xAI (read more here). We don’t know how many have been shipped off like this, but, earlier this year, Tesla had over 10,000 unsold Cybertrucks in inventory, and Cybertruck sales have fallen even further since then. So, while Tesla has registered an extra 31,893 deliveries in Q3 2025 compared to Q3 2024, there is a possibility that up to a third of these deliveries were Musk buying his own shite goods to make the numbers look a little less embarrassing.
Profit
With this context, the foil to Tesla’s dire profit situation is gone, and we can see the true rot at the core of the company.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Will Lockett's Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.