Huh, Tesla Owners Are Trading In Their Cars at Record Numbers for Some Mysterious Reason
Tesla’s 2025 could probably be going better. The automaker’s stock is having its worst stretch ever, it just announced a mass recall on the Cybertruck, and amidst frequent incidents of vandalism against the company’s vehicles, there’s a global “TeslaTakedown” day of protests scheduled for March 29.
Now, for good measure, Reuters reports that Tesla trade-ins are nearing record highs, as the company’s models from 2017 onward accounted for 1.4 percent of all vehicles exchanged through March 15. Edmunds data also shows buyer consideration for new Tesla vehicles fell to 1.8 percent in February, down from 3.3 percent in November 2024.
Some of Tesla’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad year stems from CEO Elon Musk’s close association with President Donald Trump, and his advisory of the administration’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative designed to streamline federal operations that has reportedly led to billions of dollars in cuts to thousands of jobs, global humanitarian programs, academic research, and DEI initiatives.
Tesla’s stock also plummeted after Musk told Fox Business that he was running his additional businesses—SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), Neuralink, xAI, and The Boring Company—“with great difficulty.”
But this appears to be more than just a political problem—and one years in the making.
Well before the second Trump administration kicked off, Edmunds reported in July 2024 that 51 percent of Teslas traded in at dealerships in the first half of the year were swapped for gas-powered vehicles. And when Edmunds analyzed trade-ins all the way back in 2019, Tesla owners exchanged 71 percent of their models for gas vehicles—not replacement EVs or hybrids.
And there might not be a rebound on the horizon. Now that Tesla is opening up its charging network to other automakers, there’s never been less incentive to buy one; the fast charging and availability from the Supercharger network was decidedly the last practical advantage that Tesla had.
Legacy automakers have since developed autonomous driving systems that can genuinely compete with full self-driving. They can charge just as fast, go just as far, and in 2025, they don’t carry any political weight as you drive along.
Matt Crisara is a native Austinite who has an unbridled passion for cars and motorsports, both foreign and domestic. He was previously a contributing writer for Motor1 following internships at Circuit Of The Americas F1 Track and Speed City, an Austin radio broadcaster focused on the world of motor racing. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona School of Journalism, where he raced mountain bikes with the University Club Team. When he isn’t working, he enjoys sim-racing, FPV drones, and the great outdoors.