Market trends are truly fascinating. No matter how much you think you know about them, there’s always something that manages to break the mold. Most recently, that’s been Tesla—I mean, what other company do you know that can announce a 13% decline in sales and the stock goes up 5% for the day?
Now focus on where Tesla has succeeded: going from production hell to building the world’s best-selling car in just six years. But what goes up must come down: the Model Y has lost the crown.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things electric and tech in the automotive space. In today’s edition, the Tesla Model Y was finally dethroned as the world’s best-selling car. Also on the docket: 19% of new car loans are costing buyers over $1,000 per month and Tesla is still struggling to sell Cybertrucks. Let’s jump in.
30%: Tesla Model Y Was Finally Dethroned As World’s Best-Selling Car
Photo by: Tesla
It was nice while it lasted, but the Tesla Model Y—which previously held the crown for the world’s best-selling car—is no longer on top. It was a brief symbol of what the world looked towards as the future of motoring; a battery-electric crossover from one of America’s youngest car brands. But all good things must come to an end.
The title has been stripped from the Model Y, according to a report filed by The Drive that features new data from Felipe Munoz, an automotive analyst at JATO Dynamics. Its successor? None other than the tried-and-true Toyota RAV4.
According to the data, the RAV4 outsold the Model Y by a razor-thin 2,000 units. Toyota didn’t just reclaim the top spot; it also placed five of its best-selling models in the top 10 rankings. This includes the Corolla Cross, Corolla sedan, Hilux, and Camry. Tesla took second place with the Model Y and also 9th with the Model 3. Noteworthy contenders were the Honda CR-V in 4th place, the Ford F-150 in 7th, and the BYD Qin in 10th.
The Model Y’s short-lived reign was always a little bit surprising. It’s not the most handsome car, nor is it especially luxurious for the price point. But for a time, the Model Y was everywhere. Its sales were fueled by incentives and an insatiable global appetite for crossovers, and Tesla was able to meet the demand by quickly scaling up production globally from Berlin to Shanghai. All it took was the gravitational pull of the Tesla hype machine to keep the sales counter clicking.
Demand is now softening in 2025. The Tesla image is, well, decimated, and sales are down 13% year-over-year.
Part of Tesla’s issue is its brand (thanks to its CEO), but there’s also a world of new competition that’s knocking down the castle door. Plenty of new EVs are emerging in the Chinese market and folks around the world have opened up their minds to EVs from other automakers. Plus, let’s be real, there are only so many RGB lighting tricks you can do before you realize that Tesla’s latest facelifts across its cars could have been an email.
This has put an immense amount of pressure on Tesla’s once virtually limitless profit margin. And to be clear, the Model Y is a long way from dead—but the point is that other automakers, including legacy OEMs and more traditional models, are elbowing their way back into the garages of owners across the world. If Tesla gets the spot back (and that’s a big if after seeing its latest Q2 sales), it won’t do it by sitting on its hands. Of course, we will also be on the lookout for more official data as it trickles in.
But for now, the king is dead, long live the king.
60%: Nearly 1-in-5 New Auto Loans Are Over $1,000 Per Month
Photo by: Ralph Hermens
One upon a time, $1,000 was what one would expect when shelling out for their monthly mortgage payment or maybe some high-end sports car like a Porsche 911. Today it just means that you left the dealer with a new Toyota Highlander.
New loan data from Edmunds shows that 19%—or nearly 1-in-5 new car buyers—are paying over $1,000 a month, according to Automotive News. And it gets worse: 22% of financed buyers are signing up for seven-year auto loans.
Edmunds’ director of insights, Ivan Drury, explains what’s going on behind the curtain:
“Consumers are continuously stretching to afford new vehicles in this market. While tariffs haven’t directly driven these Q2 numbers, they’re certainly not going to make things any easier for shoppers moving forward.
It’s clear that buyers are pulling the few levers they can control to manage affordability, whether that’s by taking on longer loans, financing more or putting less money down — even if some of those decisions increase their total costs.
Justifying Edmunds’ numbers is easy. The average transaction price of an EV hit $55,000 earlier this year. With nothing down at 5% interest over 60 months, the note on that loan would be around $1,040—lining up perfectly with the $1,000 per month figure reported by Edmunds. So while most buyers aren’t putting $0 down, it’s not hard to imagine luxury EV buyers ending up with four-figure payments.
And Drury is right. Consumers are looking at the monthly price to determine vehicle affordability rather than the final sale price of the vehicle. It’s a great sales trick, too. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a car dealership and the salesperson eventually asks what I want to pay per month.
But with car prices remaining stubbornly high (and presumably only headed upwards in the near term), buyers have limited options. Either stretch the loan out to 84 months or buy less car, and nobody wants less car.
90%: Tesla Is Still Struggling To Sell Cybertrucks
Photo by: NHTSA
Hey guys, remember the Cybertruck? You know, that stainless steel cheese wedge that Tesla expected to sell literally millions of units to everybody and their mother since it could deflect bullets and take a sledgehammer to the door?
It turns out that trying to sell something that looks like you beat a refrigerator into submission isn’t the easiest task. Not because it looks different (folks actually seemed to like that), but because…well, a myriad of different reasons that we’ll get into momentarily. In Tesla’s quarterly earnings figures, it was revealed that Tesla sold just over 10,000 units of the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck combined. Even if the Cybertruck accounted for 2/3rds of those sales, it would be a poor showing.
Here’s Electrek with the specifics:
Tesla’s ‘other models’ sales are now lower than they were in Q1 2023 when Tesla didn’t even have the Cybertruck included in the category.
Model S and Model X sales are also down, but they are believed still to be around 5,000 units based on international data.
This would put Tesla’s Cybertruck deliveries in Q2 2025 at about 5,000 units.
Another source, Troy Teslike, estimates that Tesla sold 4,900 units in the U.S. and 150 units in Canada.
Let’s be fair here: CEO Elon Musk always said that the Cybertruck could be a flop. But at the time, Musk was also seen by most of the world in a positive light. By the time the Cybertruck launched, Musk was funding political super PACs and had become rather radioactive for core buyers, while simultaneously failing to win new buyers from his new political faction. This brand connotation turned many would-be buyers into would-not-be buyers instead.
On top of that, the Cybertruck itself missed a number of promises. The price, for starters, is nowhere near the $39,900 that many folks reserved the truck for. It also never hit the 500 miles of expected range. Plenty of buyers may have been turned off by fit and finish issues that include glued-on pieces of metal falling off while driving on the highway.
If these numbers are right and Tesla truly did sell only 5,000 units, that puts the automaker on-track to sell somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 units this year. That’s just 10% of the capacity that it built into its Texas Gigafactory where the truck is built—needless to say, it’s starting to make sense why Tesla has asked line workers to take a few weeks off throughout the year.
100%: Could Any Other Automaker Realistically Challenge Tesla For EV Supremacy?
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
Not that we see Tesla going anywhere in the near future, but it’s clear that the automaker is having some issues with sales. Even legacy brands are seeing a significant uptick in overall electrified deliveries. GM, for example, saw its EV sales doubling as Tesla’s deliveries dropped 13% year-over-year for Q2.
That makes me wonder what other automakers could possibly give Tesla a run for its money in the EV sector. I mean, the number of choices out there are increasing fairly quickly—overseas, BYD is the clear competitor for Tesla, but back here in the States? It seems that brands mare have a rare opening to really hold Tesla’s feet to the fire and potentially even become real competition on its home turf.
If that were to happen, what brand do you think would be Tesla’s biggest threat? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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