3 things Tesla must do to make a return

Tesla just doesn’t seem to take a break.

The actions of the company fell in the middle of a reaction against the CEO Elon Musk, and its latest delivery report on Wednesday showed that its activity of sale of cars was fundamentally in difficulty.

Deliveries of the company’s first quarter fell 13% compared to the previous year to only 336,700, well unless analysts forecasts. Dan Ives, who is generally optimistic about the car manufacturer, described the “disaster” figures which showed that the automaker was in “full -fledged crisis”.

Business Insider has spoken to some of the largest observers in the automotive industry that the company must do to overthrow the steam.

Launch more models

While the political backlash against Musk made the headlines, the editor -in -chief of Kelley Blue Sean Tucker’s book told Bi that Tesla’s aging range of aging products was a great reason why deliveries were down.

He said that the automaker was struggling with a downward trend in delivery numbers since February 2023.

“They grew from 2020 to 2023, then they started to shrink,” said Tucker, citing the data from Kelley Blue Book who found that Tesla reached a peak of 60,325 American monthly sales in February 2023.

The automaker has started to sell a revised version of its successful model earlier this year, but has not launched a new vehicle from Cybertruck in 2023.

While the Cybertruck was the best -selling vehicle on the small EV truck market in 2024The collection failed to increase Tesla’s sales numbers. In the first quarter of 2025, the company sold only 12,881 “other models”, which includes the KybertruckModel S and model X.

Michael Lenox, professor of commerce and expert in the electric vehicle industry at the Darden School of Business of the University of Virginia, told Bi that European and Chinese manufacturers now have EV models that “eat” Tesla’s head.

“We have just seen a massive entry by all existing world car manufacturers,” he added.

Stephanie Valdez Stream, director of industry information at COX Automotive, told Bi that the number of electric vehicles on the American market had increased approximately 19 in 2020 to 78.

She said it had launched an affordable EV, which, according to Tesla, should be in production in the first half of 2025, even more crucial for the company.

“They need an affordable new model because affordability was a huge problem for consumers,” said Valdez Streaty.

She said that average of average in the United States, nearly $ 50,000 and that prices were to further increase prices, the time is ripe for Tesla to launch an EV from the mass market-especially since business factories in the United States could somewhat protect it from prices.

“Tesla said in the past that they were between two growth waves, so they need something to propel them to this next growth wave,” said Valdez Streaty.

While some may consider a vehicle of less than $ 30,000 to Tesla’s grace, Tucker said that the company had not indicated that its affordable EV would necessarily be a high volume product. He said it would probably be a new version of a model 3 or the Y model with a smaller battery or a different battery technology.

“It is not really a high volume convincing product that will earn them a lot of sales, at least in the United States,” said Tucker.

Free a more advanced technology

Lenox said Tesla also needed to focus on “advancing technology so that they could get more capacity and a lower cost of the battery”.

Lenox told Bi that the Chinese competitor of Tesla, byd, has not only more models on the road, but also dominates the value chain of the battery. Byd said 416.00 deliveries in the first quarter on Tuesday, much more than Tesla.

BYD’s latest increase in load is strengthening its position as a large global electric vehicle company, said Lenox.

Byd recently announced that new chargers could add nearly 250 miles of range to an EV in five minutes. The 1,000 kW chargers are four times more powerful than Tesla’s current chargers, who said Tesla, who said 200 miles in 15 minutes. Tesla plans to deploy 500 kW Chargers this year, but it’s still half of the byd release claims to be able to provide.

Tucker added that Tesla has “nothing particularly exciting in the pipeline” on the technological front. Teslas is built on a 400 -volt system, and most competitors are now built on a system of 800 volts, which allows faster load and better performance.

While Tesla is expected to launch its Robotaxi service in Austin this summer, Tucker said that Tesla’s rivals had already launched a robotaxis – and had struggled to make them profitable.

“Maybe Tesla has a secret sauce that it can make it work in a way that GM did not do,” said Tucker. “But even if this is the case, I don’t know that someone is going out and buying a Tesla because they liked to drive in Tesla’s Robotaxi,” he continued.

Ramp up advertising

Tesla has traditionally hesitated to advertise, preferring to rely on social media and Elon Musk’s word of mouth.

He declared in 2019 that he “hates” advertising, and the automaker started to increase his announcements of announcements in 2023 after the shareholders asked for this.

Tesla’s Ad-Lite approach may have worked when the company was the only EV game in the city-but now that the competition is increasing and with damage to the Tesla brand assembly, Valdez Streaty said that the automaker could benefit from a blitz marketing.

She said, “There is more competition, and how do you raise your brand or your models when there is so much there?”

Tesla benefited from the mentions of Musk’s ally, President Donald Trump. Last month, Trump amazed by a fleet of Tesla vehicles during a press event on the lawn of the White House. Commerce secretary, Howard Lux, even told people to buy the dive as the company’s stock has dropped.

These responded to protests, vandalism and attacks against the company for the involvement of Musk with the administration and its other political interventions. Analysts cited politics as part of the decline in the company’s actions.

Sales will also be affected if the anti-TESLA movement continues, said Tucker.

“Few people will cross a stake line to buy a car,” he added.