Tesla offers buyer perks to drum up interest with sales slumping

AUSTIN – Tesla is tempting customers with charging perks and cheap financing to help revitalise sales amid a slow start to the year for the electric-vehicle (EV) maker.

The company is offering free lifetime supercharging on Foundation Series Cybertrucks purchased after Feb 28. It is also advertising 0 per cent annual percentage rate or zero due at signing for Model 3s and discounts on older Model Y units as it ramps up production of a refreshed version. The more expensive Model X and Model S also come with lifetime supercharging.

Tesla’s first quarter is traditionally slow, but 2025’s slump is significant. Vehicle sales and shipments have dropped year over year in key markets, with China – its biggest market – reporting a 49 per cent drop in Tesla shipments in February, according to preliminary data from China Passenger Car Association. In France, registrations fell 26 per cent in February after a slow January, while overall European sales declined 45 per cent year over year in January. And in California, Tesla’s largest US market, Model 3 registrations dropped 36 per cent in 2024.

Tesla’s shares fell 4.4 per cent on March 4 amid broad market declines over concerns about a global trade war. The EV maker’s stock tumbled 30 per cent this year through March 3’s close.

Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk’s polarising political moves in the US and Europe in 2025 have fuelled consumer backlash, with showrooms and supercharger locations experiencing protests and vandalism. Some Tesla owners have even added anti-Musk stickers to their vehicles, while others are trading in their Teslas or opting for other EV models. 

The company’s executives have said Tesla will return to growth in 2025 despite the first annual sales decline in more than a decade in 2024. In 2024, the company pushed a number of end-of-year deals in an attempt to boost its 2024 numbers. Tesla’s 2025 outlook did not include specific figures, nor did it repeat a prediction Mr Musk had given in October for a potential 20 per cent to 30 per cent growth in sales.

Tesla is also contending with an increasingly older EV line-up as it works toward an expected start of production of more affordable models in the first half of the year, however details on the upcoming vehicles are limited. The EV maker is expected to lose several weeks of output this quarter as it upgrades its factories to produce the redesigned Model Y, its most popular vehicle.

In addition to the supercharging and financing perks, Tesla is also advertising the federal EV tax credit, an incentive the Trump administration has threatened, on a number of its vehicles including non-Foundation Series Cybertruck models. In June, Tesla had said it plans to stop selling its Foundation Series of the Cybertruck, which started deliveries in late 2023, “pretty soon”. BLOOMBERG