NEW YORK, January 4, 2026, 08:01 ET — Market closed
- Tesla shares last closed down 2.6% after quarterly deliveries fell and missed analyst estimates.
- Tesla reported record quarterly energy-storage deployments and set a Jan. 28 earnings date.
- Investors head into Monday’s open watching demand signals, margins and updates on robotaxi and robotics.
Tesla shares last closed down 2.6% at $438.07 on Friday after the Nasdaq-listed electric-vehicle maker reported a sharper-than-expected drop in quarterly deliveries and ceded its global EV sales lead to China’s BYD. The stock traded between $435.30 and $458.34 in the session.
Deliveries, a proxy for sales that counts cars handed to customers, are one of the market’s first hard reads on EV demand in 2026. The update comes as the industry adjusts to the loss of a $7,500 federal tax credit that had helped pull purchases forward last year.
Tesla said it delivered 418,227 vehicles in the October–December quarter, down 15.6% from a year earlier, while analysts expected 434,487, according to Visible Alpha. Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said the decline was not a major surprise given the market had already priced in softer demand after the tax credit ended, even as investors focus on longer-dated bets. “Investors are so focused on the future with Tesla that they are ignoring delivery numbers. It’s about Optimus, Robotaxi and physical AI,” said Dennis Dick, a trader at Triple D Trading, which owns Tesla shares. Reuters
Tesla said it produced 434,358 vehicles in the quarter and deployed 14.2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy storage products — a measure of battery capacity — a record for deployments. For 2025, the company reported 1,636,129 deliveries and 46.7 GWh of storage deployments, and said it will post fourth-quarter results after the market closes on Jan. 28, followed by a webcast at 5:30 p.m. ET.
An 8-K filing dated Jan. 2 showed Tesla furnished the delivery update to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and listed its common stock under the TSLA symbol on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
J.D. Power data showed EVs accounted for 6.2% of U.S. retail vehicle sales in the quarter, down 3.6 percentage points from a year earlier, while average transaction prices rose nearly $6,000 to $53,300. The mix of weaker demand and higher prices has kept investors focused on Tesla’s ability to defend volumes without sacrificing profitability.
Competition remains a central part of that debate, with Tesla facing pressure from BYD and European automakers such as Volkswagen and BMW. BYD said sales outside China climbed to a record 1 million vehicles in 2025 and it aims to sell as many as 1.6 million outside China in 2026.
Tesla has moved to protect volumes with cheaper variants. The company in October launched stripped-down “Standard” versions of the Model Y and Model 3, priced about $5,000 below the previous base models, a step that disappointed some investors who had expected deeper cuts or a new mass-market product.
In Europe, Tesla registrations — a proxy for sales — fell 66% in France and 71% in Sweden in December, but jumped 89% in Norway to 5,679 vehicles. Reuters reported Tesla’s market share across Europe, Britain and the EFTA slid to 1.7% through November from 2.4% a year earlier, even as battery-electric adoption rose.
Rivian on Friday reported 2025 deliveries of 42,247 vehicles, down 18% from a year earlier, underscoring demand pressure across premium-priced EVs. The company said it expects to start delivering its lower-cost R2 model in the first half of 2026, a vehicle it says will compete with Tesla’s best-selling Model Y.
Before the next U.S. session on Monday, Jan. 5, investors will watch whether the delivery reset spills into other EV names and whether fresh analyst notes follow the demand signal. Traders also tend to watch Friday’s low around $435 as a near-term support area, with the $458 zone marking the recent session high.
