General view of a Tesla Store in Paramus, New Jersey, on March 20, 2025.
Kena Betancur | Getty Images
Tesla reported 336,000 vehicle deliveries in the first quarter of 2025, a 13% decline from a year ago, two days after the electric vehicle company’s stock wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.
Shares slumped 4% following the news.
Here are the key numbers:
Total deliveries Q1 2025: 336,681
Total production Q1 2025: 362,615
Investors were expecting Tesla to report deliveries of between 360,000 and 370,000 vehicles, according to StreetAccount. Tesla’s investor relations team sends a company-compiled consensus to select analysts, and said the average estimate was for around 377,590 deliveries. Prediction market company Kalshi on Tuesday released a forecast for Tesla deliveries of 352,000.
In the first quarter of 2024, Tesla reported 386,810 deliveries, and production of 433,371 vehicles.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, typically among Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s biggest believers, called the report a “fork in the road moment” for the electric vehicle company in a post on social media platform X.
“We knew 1Q Tesla deliveries would be soft but these numbers were bad,” he wrote. “We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses…they were a disaster on every metric. Refresh issues but brand crisis key.”
Deliveries are the closest approximation of vehicle sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.
Tesla doesn’t break out sales and production by model or region. However, the company said that it produced 345,454of its most popular Model 3 and Model Y cars and delivered 323,800 of them in the three months ending March 31.
The company reported 12,881 deliveries of its other models, including its angular steel Cybertruck.
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During the quarter, Tesla faced planned, partial shutdowns in some of its factories that allowed the company to upgrade manufacturing lines to start producing a redesigned version of its popular Model Y SUV.
Musk recently said during an all-hands session with Tesla employees that he expects the Model Y to be the “best-selling car on Earth again this year.”
But Tesla has to contend with an onslaught of EV competition and reputational damage. In the first quarter, the company was hit with waves of protests, boycotts and some criminal activity that targeted Tesla vehicles and facilities in response to Musk’s political rhetoric and his work as part of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
After spending $290 million to help return Trump to the White House, Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where has slashed costs, eliminated regulations and cut tens of thousands of federal jobs.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, has also involved himself in European politics, promoting the anti-immigrant AfD party in Germany in February’s elections. Tesla’s business on the continent is struggling.
Across 15 European countries, Tesla’s market share declined to 9.3% in the first quarter from 17.9% in the same period a year earlier, according to data tracked by EU-EVs.com. In Germany, Tesla’s market share in battery electric vehicles plummeted to 4% from about 16% over that stretch.
Sales of Tesla’s electric vehicles made in China came in at 78,828 in March, slumping 11.5% year-on-year, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association released Wednesday. The company is facing rising competition in the region from EV makers such as BYD.
Early in the quarter, Tesla claimed it sold 8,653 EVs during a single January weekend in Canada, the Toronto Star reported, qualifying it for tens of millions in EV subsidy payments that were part of a program that was ending. Canada’s transportation minister later froze the payments and is investigating the validity of the sales.
Tesla did not immediately respond to an email from CNBC asking whether the Canada numbers were included in the Q1 deliveries report.
Tesla shares sank 36% in the first quarter, their steepest drop since the fourth quarter of 2022 and third-biggest decline in the company’s 15 years on the public market. The drop wiped out $460 billion in market cap.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Tesla’s market share in Europe fell from 17.9% in the first quarter of 2024 to 9.3% in the first quarter of 2025. A previous version of this story transposed those numbers.
Zach Perret, CEO and co-founder of Plaid, speaks during the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Jan. 31, 2020.
George Frey | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Plaid on Thursday announced a new funding round that values the fintech startup at $6 billion, down from $13.4 billion in 2021. The new funding will give some employees a way to cash out.
The $575 million round was led by a batch of new investors including Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and BlackRock. Existing backers NEA and Ribbit Capital also participated, Plaid said.
Plaid CEO Zach Perret said the startup saw a “substantial” growth year with record revenue and positive operating margins, though he did not provide specifics. The downsized valuation is a reflection of market conditions, he said.
“The reality is our business is much stronger and revenue has grown quite substantially,” Perret told CNBC. “The profitability of business has gotten quite a lot better, and yet we are impacted by market multiples, as many companies are.”
Plaid is “not ready” for an IPO quite yet, but this round will be the last private fundraise until the company lists on public markets, he said.
“An IPO is absolutely on our path for the coming years. We haven’t assigned a specific timeline to it,” Perret said. “We still have a lot of internal work to do. We’re not ready, which is why we didn’t consider it right now.”
Rise of secondary rounds
Plaid’s new funding allows employees to cash out of restricted stock units that expire at the end of the year. The startup will also use a portion of the proceeds to enable an employee tender offer.
“That’s the motivation for the round,” Perret said. “We think it’s important to give our employees options to sell and the ability to have liquidity, especially given that Plaid has been private for so long.”
Plaid is the latest in a string of late-stage, private deals designed to enable employees to cash out in private markets. Ramp, DataBricks, OpenAI and Stripe have all announced secondary financings that were designed to let some employees get liquidity. Few of those companies seem eager to wade into public markets. Recent volatility around stocks and lackluster performance of recent IPOs, including CoreWeave’s last week, has kept some companies on the sidelines.
“Volatility is definitely going to be one of the key factors,” Perret said, adding that it was too early to assess IPO market conditions for Plaid.
The startup has been on a roller coaster in private markets since it was founded a decade ago. Plaid was set to be bought by Visa for $5 billion in 2020 in a deal that was eventually called off amid regulatory scrutiny. The following year, it raised money at a $13.4 billion valuation. That also marked the peak for growth and technology valuations before the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates.
Plaid provides the plumbing to connect consumer bank accounts to popular finance apps. Its APIs let consumers link their bank accounts to services like Venmo, Robinhood and Coinbase. Since then, it’s expanded into direct bill pay, cyber security and data analytics. It also partners with major banks.
Cybersecurity is one of Plaid’s largest growth areas, Perret said. He pointed to financial fraud growing at 20% to 25% per year as a result of the boom in artificial intelligence.
“We’ve been leaning in to try to build tools to combat deep fakes and a lot of AI-driven financial fraud,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is a large market opportunity. It’s something that we’d actually like to be smaller. But it’s been an area of growth.”
Apple’s iPhone 16 at an Apple Store on Regent Street in London on Sept. 20, 2024.
Rasid Necati Aslim | Anadolu | Getty Images
Apple has made moves to diversify its supply chain beyond China to places like India and Vietnam, but tariffs announced by the White House are set to hit those countries too.
China will face a 34% tariff, but with the existing 20% rate, that brings the true tariff rate on Beijing under this Trump term to 54%, CNBC reported. India faces a 26% tariff, while Vietnam’s rate is 46%.
Apple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Here’s a breakdown on Apple’s supply chain footprint that could be affected by tariffs.
China
The majority of Apple’s iPhones are still assembled in China by partner Foxconn.
China accounts for around 80% of Apple’s production capacity, according to estimates from Evercore ISI in a note last month.
Around 90% of iPhones are assembled in China, Evercore ISI said.
While the number of manufacturing sites in China dropped between Apple’s 2017 and 2020 fiscal year, it has since rebounded, Bernstein said in a note last month. Chinese suppliers account for around 40% of Apple’s total, Bernstein said.
Evercore ISI estimates that 55% of Apple’s Mac products and 80% of iPads are assembled in China.
India
Apple is targeting around 25% of all iPhones globally to be made in India, a government minister said in 2023.
India could reach about 15%-20% of overall iPhone production by the end of 2025, Bernstein analysts estimate. Evercore ISI said around 10% to 15% of iPhones are currently assembled in India.
Vietnam
Vietnam has emerged in the past few years as a popular manufacturing hub for consumer electronics. Apple has increased its production in Vietnam.
Around 20% of iPad production and 90% of Apple’s wearable product assembly like the Apple Watch takes place in Vietnam, according to Evercore ISI.
Other key countries
Malaysia is a growing manufacturing location for Apple for Macs and is facing a 25% tariff. Thailand is also a small hub for Mac production and will be hit with a 36% levy.
Apple also sources components from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the United States. Components may be shipped from one country to another before assembly takes place in China or elsewhere.
In February, Apple announced plans to open a new factory for artificial intelligence servers in Texas as part of a $500 billion investment in the U.S.
However, Apple does not have mass production in the United states. It produces only the Mac Pro in Texas.
A Xiaomi store in Shanghai, China, on March 16, 2025.
Qilai Shen/Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Chinese electric carmakers Xiaomi, Xpeng and Leapmotor each delivered nearly 30,000 or more cars in March, roughly twice several of their fellow startup competitors.
It’s a sign of how some automakers are pulling ahead, while BYD remains the market leader by far.
Xiaomi delivered a record number of electric vehicles in March, exceeding 29,000 units, the company announced on social media. That topped its prior run of delivering more than 20,000 vehicles in each of the past five months.
The SU7, Xiaomi’s flagship model, was involved in a crash on a highway on Tuesday that left three dead. The automaker on Tuesday afternoon released a statement on Chinese social media that the vehicle was in navigation on autopilot mode before the accident.
Based on preliminary information, the road was obstructed because of construction. The driver took control of the car but collided with construction infrastructure. Xiaomi added in the release that investigations were underway.
That came two weeks after the automaker announced on March 18 its goal to deliver 350,000 vehicles this year. There are also talks of the automaker expanding its second EV factory in Beijing to meet demand, Bloomberg reported on March 18. Xiaomi did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Its competitor Xpeng in March delivered 33,205 vehicles, the fifth consecutive month it has delivered over 30,000 units per month and reflecting a 268% surge in deliveries from the same month last year. March is also the fifth consecutive month the company has delivered over 15,000 units of the Mona M03.
Li Autodelivered 36,674 vehicles in March, a 26.5% year-over-year increase, but fewer than every month in the second half of 2024. The company’s cars had gained early traction with Chinese consumers since most come with a fuel tank for charging the vehicle’s battery, reducing anxiety about driving range.
BYD sold 371,419 passenger vehicles in March, reflecting a year-over-year growth of 57.9%. Its overseas sales volume also hit a record high of 72,723 units in March.
Across the board, major companies across China’s electric car industry reported deliveries rose last month, indicating a pick-up in demand from the seasonally soft first two months of the year.
U.S. automaker Tesla sold 78,828 electric vehicles in China in March, marking a 11.5% year-over-year decline in growth.
Other Chinese carmakers saw growth in deliveries but some still struggled to break through the 20,000-unit mark.
Niodelivered 15,039 vehicles, a 26.7% year-over-year growth, but well below the number of cars delivered in the months of May to December last year. Nio-owned Onvo, which markets its electric vehicles as family-oriented, in March recorded 15,039 units in deliveries.
Aito, as of April 2, has not published its delivery numbers for March. The automaker, which uses Huawei tech in its vehicles, on social media had reported monthly deliveries of 34,987 and 21,517 in January and February, respectively.
Quarterly performance
On a first-quarter basis, BYD remained in the lead with 986,098 vehicles sold. The automaker, which overtook Tesla in annual sales last year, surpassed the U.S. EV giant in battery electric vehicles sales this quarter.
Tesla sold 172,754 vehicles in China in the first quarter this year, according to monthly delivery numbers published by the China Passenger Car Association.
Xpeng also reported strong growth, with a total of 94,008 vehicles delivered in the quarter ending in March, reflecting a 331% year-over-year growth.
Leapmotor saw quarterly deliveries more than double to 87,552 units from 33,410 units the same period in 2024, according to publicly available numbers the company published.
However, Li Auto and Nio reported weaker growth than their competitors in the first quarter of the year.
Nio saw 42,094 vehicles delivered in the three months ended March 2025, an increase of 40.1% year over year. Li Auto saw a slower year-over-year growth of 15.5%, with a total of 92,864 vehicles delivered.