GM surges in EV sales as Tesla stumbles amid Musk controversy

USA Today

6 hours ago

Tesla Inc., the No. 1 electric vehicle company in the United States, is shedding customers as public opinion soured on its polarizing billionaire CEO Elon Musk. The gap it leaves in the market is steadily filling, auto experts say, with products produced by General Motors.
The Detroit automaker accelerated electric vehicle sales and market share in the first half of the year thanks to expanded electric offerings across three of its four brands. Meanwhile, consumer sentiment for Texas-based rival Tesla cratered this spring due to criticism over Musk's hands-on involvement in Washington politics.
'GM is quietly building trust while Elon burns it,' said Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis for AutoPacifi­c. 'Consumers are responding to consistency, not volatility, and GM's steady hand is starting to pay dividends.'
Though the tides shifted somewhat, the sales gulf between the American automakers remains vast. GM EV sales are a distant second to Tesla. Still, GM reported triple-digit growth in its EVs while Tesla faced a double-digit loss during that period.
Tesla said it delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter globally through June, down 13% from 443,956 deliveries in the same period a year ago. Tesla does not break out deliveries by region, so sales estimates conducted by the Automotive News Data Center put Tesla's second-quarter U.S. sales around 125,000, down 16.7%. For the first six months of 2025, Tesla sold 255,000 in the U.S., down 13% from first half of 2024.
GM, meanwhile, sold 78,167 electric cars in the United States for the first half of the year, an 111% increase from midyear 2024. Of those, 46,280 were sold in the second quarter.
Through June of this year, GM's estimated EV market share reached 13% — but it could still grow as the year progresses, and Tesla's may yet still shrink, according to Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.
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Annual sales of Tesla's lineup fell for the first time in 2024. Tesla attributed the decline to a pause in production to shift to a refreshed version of its bestselling Model Y SUV, which industry experts said would prompt customers to hold off on buying until the newer version could be rolled out.
Instead, people bought fewer Tesla vehicles.
'There's not one thing that's causing Tesla sales to go down and GM's to go up. It's a combination of factors,' Fiorani said. 'Some of that will be a response to Elon Musk, some will be to the EV tax credits going away. The EV market is developing so fast, but we are still just at the beginning of the bell curve.'
Long head start
Tesla, Inc., which manufactures electric cars, batteries and solar panels, was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. PayPal cofounder Elon Musk invested $30 million into the venture and served as chair of the company before taking over as CEO shortly after its first vehicle launch, the Roadster, in 2008.
GM, on the other hand, was founded 100 years before the Roadster hit the road, and even benefited from creating the first modern electric vehicle in 1996 with the EV1, but did not rally behind wide-scale electric vehicle production until the 2010s.
Tesla's longevity as a household name in electric vehicles may give it an advantage over larger legacy automakers like GM, but that name is losing luster amid a stagnating vehicle lineup and weaker physical footprint, Stephanie Valdez-Streaty, Cox's director of industry insights, told the Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. (Tesla does not use franchise dealerships and does not offer promotional discounts on its products.) Tesla hasn't launched an all-new vehicle since the Cybertruck in 2023.
'Tesla has had this head start, but you see these other manufacturers launch products that resonate and engage their dealerships to sell them,' she said.
GM's sales of electric vehicles may be growing exponentially, but they still fall far short of the business the company does with gas-powered models. GM has used its multi-powertrain portfolio to its advantage.
Popularity of the gas-powered versions of the Chevrolet Equinox and Blazer likely aided sales of electric offerings, analysts contend, as consumers leaned on familiar choices. The Chevrolet Equinox EV, launched last year at $34,995, had sales of 17,420 so far this year. GM sold 12,736 Blazer EVs so far in 2025, up from the 7,234 it sold through June of 2024.
"We're all about giving our customers more choices. We made the right investments over the last few years to bring the industry's broadest ICE and EV portfolio to market,' said GM spokeswoman Tara Kuhnen. "We're proud to keep driving innovation here in the U.S.'
Joe LaFeir, president of automotive insights at S&P Global Mobility, noted in a February statement announcing GM's 10th consecutive year securing the top spot for Highest Overall Manufacturer Loyalty that an automaker sporting a healthy pipeline of product offerings that appeal to a wide range of buyers encourages return sales.
Fiorani added that the more options consumers have in general, the more likely they are to find what they're looking for when brands transition to electric powertrains.
'GM has Cadillacs, and Chevrolets and GMCs spread across a number of segments,' Fiorani said. 'They're still way behind Tesla's, but they offer choices to their customers that Tesla does not.'
Reputational damage
Musk's role in President Donald Trump's administration leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has garnered the company negative press and customer backlash.
DOGE, Musk's brainchild, has been responsible for thousands of job cuts in the public sector, which, in turn, were blamed for inspiring mass vandalism of Teslas at dealerships and public parking lots. Videos of people keying Teslas have gone viral on social media platforms Instagram and X.
A Detroit Free Press reporter rented a Tesla in March to gauge reactions of metro Detroit residents and to connect with Tesla owners, some of whom shared that the CEO's involvement in politics added stress to their ownership and were advised by others to return the vehicle.
The true impact of Tesla's shifting public image may yet materialize, Valdez-Streaty added, as it will take time for polarizing headlines to tangibly impact vehicle sales. She compared the change to consumer sentiment, where spending habits take time to catch up to reports of economic uncertainty.
'When it comes to data on favorability by brand, Tesla is definitely down,' she said.
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at [e-mail].