It wouldn’t be the end of the year without the sometimes-automaker known as Tesla doing something strategically strange. If you’re going to attempt an out-of-the-ordinary maneuver, this is the week to do it, as our own traffic indicates that many of you are not yet back at the office.
There are just two Morning Dumps left in the year, which means there are two more days of shenanigans. Up first is Tesla, which put out its own public consensus estimate for what the market predicts the company will deliver in Q4. That’s unusual, especially considering the number.
Also unusual is the alleged behavior of a Kia-Mitsubishi dealer in Iowa, with Mitsubishi claiming it’s not really acting like a Mitsubishi dealer. Who owns Bugatti? It’s sort of Porsche, therefore kinda Volkswagen, definitely Rimac. The future of that company may involve removing the Porsche part of the equation.
Do you like The Autopian?! You’re not alone! The site has been recognized by my own local paper.
Tesla Reports A Low Estimate Of Q4 Deliveries
Above is a screenshot from the Tesla Investor Relations page, which is a page I visit fairly regularly. This is where Tesla posts information relevant to shareholders, including its quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K filings. This morning, there was a new column marked “consensus.” Weird! You’ll notice that Tesla has never publicly listed this number before.
If you go to that page, you’ll see a “company-compiled delivery consensus of sell-side analysts.” This means that Tesla chose the sell-side analysts, which means that it could basically create whatever number it wanted.
In this compilation of analysis, Tesla will deliver about 422,850 vehicles in Q4, which is down a lot from Q3, and would set the company up for its second annual drop in deliveries, before magically exploding to more than 3 million global deliveries in 2029, led by a huge increase in non Model 3/Y sales (CyberCab, I guess?)
What’s important to point out here, as Bloomberg does, is that this number seems low:
By Tesla’s count, analysts on average expect the company to deliver 422,850 cars in the fourth quarter, down 15% from a year earlier. That compares with a Bloomberg-compiled average of 445,061 vehicles, a 10% drop.
Tesla does regularly compile these estimates, but it usually only shares them with a small group of analysts and major investors. Why go public? Electrek, the EV site that once championed Tesla and now treats it skeptically, has a theory:
By releasing its own, lower consensus publicly, Tesla appears to be attempting to lower expectations ahead of the official delivery and production report, which is expected in the first few days of January. If the “whisper numbers” on the street are 440k and Tesla delivers 425k, the stock would typically take a hit. By anchoring expectations to ~420k now, a 425k result might be spun as a “beat.”
This is like when my wife asks me how many loads of laundry I think I can do on a Sunday, and I say “two” so that I can beat estimates by doing three loads.
I’m not sure that I buy the argument that this will have any predictable impact on Tesla’s stock price because Tesla’s stock price has a flubber-like ability to react in exaggerated and counter-intuitive ways.
Mitsubishi Upset Its Dealer Isn’t Even Pretending To Be A Mitsubishi Dealer
Kia has had an incredible run of quarters, which has likely been good news for its dealers. While Mitsubishi’s slate of affordable vehicles has done ok in this market, the slim margins mean that, given the choice, most dealers would rather represent the former.
Edwards Auto Group in Council Bluffs, Iowa, gets the benefit of hosting both brands, although Mitsubishi, in a recent lawsuit, claims that Edwards Mitsubishi isn’t exactly representing the Japanese automaker as well as it should.
Edwards wouldn’t talk to Automotive News, but the publication has some details from the lawsuit:
In its 2022 renewal, Mitsubishi authorized Edwards to combine its Mitsubishi and Kia service departments in a single facility, according to the complaint, but required a physically separate Mitsubishi showroom.
However, a site visit in August revealed the Mitsubishi showroom was unstaffed and was being used for storage and as a “coordination point” for porters who were cleaning and prepping Kia vehicles, the complaint said.
[…]
On Edwards’ lot, Mitsubishi vehicles are “limited in number and intermingled with a significantly larger inventory of Kia vehicles, making it difficult for consumers to identify the Mitsubishi brand presence,” it said in the complaint. “Prospective Mitsubishi buyers who visit Edwards Mitsubishi during purported open hours will find that the dealership appears closed and are likely to be confused or mistakenly believe the Mitsubishi dealership is no longer in business.”
Hmm… let’s take a look at what the Mitsubishi dealer looks like based on a photo posted by the dealership:
Look at that Pepsi machine! Seems like a nice place to me.
Someone Wants To Buy Porsche AG’s Share Of Bugatti
The intermingling of Porsche and Volkswagen is always a little confusing, but Porsche AG is the company that owns Porsche and is itself mostly owned by Volkswagen AG, itself about a third-owned by Porsche SE.
To make it even more exciting, Porsche/VW got super pumped about electric automaker/tech company Rimac Group a few years back and, through various transactions, ended up creating the combined Bugatti Rimac.
How is it going? Ehhh… there have been some issues, and it’s been suspected that Porsche might sell its shares in Bugatti Rimac. Now, according to Bloomberg, there’s a potential buyer:
HOF Capital, the fund co-founded by a scion of Egypt’s billionaire Sawiris family, and BlueFive Capital are in talks to acquire Porsche AG’s stake in the venture that owns the Bugatti supercar brand, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The investors are in discussions to team up on a possible deal to buy Porsche’s stake in Bugatti Rimac, a joint venture between the German sport-car maker and Croatia’s Rimac Group, the people said. The potential transaction would also involve investors including HOF Capital buying Porsche’s stake in Rimac Group itself, the people said.
Just because there are buyers doesn’t mean that Porsche AG/SE will sell.
Small New York Publication Recognizes The Greatness Of Autopian
Oh, what’s this? Is The Autopian the only automotive website to be recognized by The New York Times as having one of the best sentences of the year? To be fair, Dan Neil at The Wall Street Journal was also recognized, although that’s not purely an automotive publication.
As Frank Bruni notes:
What a challenging year. Many of us struggle to make sense of what’s happening in America. We cope in different ways. Some spend more time in nature. Others retreat into books or the gym.
Still others turn to their keyboards, distilling this unruly world into words.
Obviously, I’m a modest, private person, and so I’m only sharing this here and via various text messages, Instagram, Facebook, Discord, and LinkedIn. Here’s the sentence, if you were curious:
You don’t buy a Subaru so much as you ascend into your final form as an outdoorsy Subaru owner when a ray of light beams down from the nearest REI, and all your clothes vanish from your body and are replaced by Patagonia.
Neat! Honestly, I was afraid that I’d lifted the formula from this sentence from a friend’s podcast, and so I emailed him to ask if that was the case. To his memory, he didn’t use this formula, but a part of me is sure I adapted it from somewhere. Good writers borrow, great ones steal, et cetera et cetera.
Also, thanks to Carol from Granville for nominating us! In honor of this, you can use the code “frankbruni” (or click this link) to get $10 off any annual plan for the rest of the year. Find out more about membership here.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Chappel Roan was not famous seven years ago, nor as amusingly flamboyant as she is now. Still, she was already one hell of a songwriter. Enjoy “School Nights.”
The Big Question
Which automaker did it best in 2025? It was a challenging year, but some automakers rose to the occasion while others sank.
Top photo: Tesla
Jaguar is ending 2025 with higher quality than they began. By not manufacturing anything.
They produced a fair bit of disappointment, though.
Sure, but it’s less disappointing to learn you can’t buy one than spending Jaguar money just to end up with a Jaguar.
Does manufactured outrage count?
Even the Pepsi distributor is neglecting that place, they haven’t updated the machine’s signage for the last two logo redesigns.
Man, David’s gone Hollywood AND Matt’s Mr. New York Times now?! Sheeeeeesh. Next thing you know they’re gonna upgrade the Aztec to an R63 AMG and roll up with a lobster wheelbarrow….
Speaking of Flubber, watched that last week with my kids. First time they had seen it. They dont make slapstick like that anymore…
That NYT nod made me sooo happy. Congrats, you wise wordsmiths.
Toyota is so insanely far ahead right now, the gap to the next automaker feels pretty insurmountable.
Our local dealers still pull the crap where 90% of their listings are cars “in transit” or even more ridiculous “in production”. If I were to want to test drive a Sienna, I’d have to drive past 3 dealers just to find one on a lot. It’s pretty nuts how easily they sell everything they build.
It’s certifiably insane. The wife wants a Highlander Hybrid but is somewhat open to being talked into a Sienna. We won’t be actively shopping for at least another year or so, but I keep telling her we’re going to need to start putting our names on lists now and that in all likelihood we’ll be spending $60,000.
Is it worth paying luxury car prices for a Toyota? I personally don’t know. The longevity and residuals are hard to argue with but we’re at the point that we’re looking at cost deltas at or close to 5 figures. It’s going to take a long time for the lower ownership costs and lesser depreciation to amount to that much.
But guess what? She refuses to consider a Korean car because of the Kia Boyz nonsense and since her family has only had Hondas and Toyotas she’s not settling for anything less. Hell the Toyota options are so expensive and sought after at this point that we’re going to cross shop the XC90 Recharge…
Everyone says this but my experience couldn’t have been further from this when I bought my 4Runner in 2024. It is a desirable trim and spec and was the “last of the N/A V6” as the forum people say. I was able to negotiate them down $5k on the price for an in stock model in late January. I guess I just got really lucky? Maybe it was because it was a color other than black, white, or silver?
I know someone who recently got $20k! off a new Tundra. So It 100% depends what the vehicle model is. Toyota isn’t moving everything as fast as it seems.
I’m sure region and model matter quite a bit. Though around here 4Runners have always been sold at a premium.
Smart move getting the last of that generation of 4Runner.
Love everything but the gas mileage lol. Funny thing is I didn’t even know it was the last of the 5th gen’s. We just wanted something slightly bigger than my Xterra and the 4Runner fit the bill.
A lot of people around me are in the “just buy a Toyota” camp but man does leaning into that mindset seem to result in a really bad place to be when negotiating the purchase of a car.
I think my biggest aversion is the non-zero odds that I pay more for the Toyota, and it doesn’t meet the lofty expectations for reliability. Paying those sorts of prices and getting a turd would be really, really disappointing.
Additionally, (though idk of this counts as ’25) Toyota has markedly improved its worst offering, upgrading the bZ4X from being the worst vehicle in its class (other than Vinfast) to the bZ which tops the EPA efficiency list only behind sedans and a tick below the Tesla Model Y (which is a coupe-SUV).
Yeah now that the Busy Forks has been updated into a competent vehicle, Toyota no longer has a total piece of shit in the lineup. Which I would also consider a win.
I’d say Hyundai/Kia has been on an absolute tear this year. They’re my pick for the brand(s) ending 2025 better than they started. Of which there are not many.
At least that Mitsubishi dealer has Zero in inventory.
Unfortunately the pilot was KIA.
“I heard great-grandpa got a mitsubishi zero down when he was my age, but did they even have US dealerships back then?”
If they did, they’d have been about as popular as this one.
Tesla’s gaming of the consensus numbers is still far more normal than using refundable deposits on upcoming cars to indicate demand. IMHO. Should be illegal for public companies, but yet it’s widely accepted.
“company-compiled delivery consensus of sell-side analysts.”
Yeah I’m not sure if that’s completely the truth. What exact model are they coming out with that will double their sales between now and the end of 2029?
If Tesla had continued with their “$25,000 BEV” program and if they come out with a proper passenger/commercial van (not that stupid Robus/Robovan), then I would believe it.
The Cybertruck won’t get them to those volumes either unless they completely redesign it to make it a whole lot cheaper.
The Robotaxi/Cyber isn’t gonna do it… which I predict will be a complete flop… unless they redesign it and turn it into something like a “model 3 coupe” with proper driver controls.
The Semi and the Roadster won’t get them to those volumes either.
I think that projection is NOT from sell-side analysts. I suspect it’s just propaganda from Elon Musk. And if I’m wrong about that, I’d want to see the details of how these jackass analysts came to their conclusions.
I’ve been investing in the stock market for 30 years and I’ve lost count on the number of times I’ve seen “analysts” say or project things that were completely assinine that made it clear to me that they didn’t do their homework and are just pulling projections and words out of their asses… likely to support an existing short or long position they have.
The worst thing about the Tesla “Stunt Race FX”, is that the underlying tech would work great for a lot of different vehicles. The Steer by wire alone really opens up some great packaging for say, a commercial van with a setback axle.
Apparently Stellantis may be doing the $30k EV first!
Edwards should sell Mitsubishi mini-splits out of their showroom.
From what I see on the roads where I live it sure looks like Mazda,Toyota,Kia,and Hyundai must have had a good year.
As I said in the comments to the COTD article, congratulations, Matt! You’re in excellent company on Bruni’s list. (I can’t imagine Dan Neil ever not making into that list.)
Toyota did it best in 2025. New 4Runner is absolutely a worthy successor, new Rav4 unveiled as all Hybrid, new gen Camry all Hybrid, and the extent of their offerings grows more compelling with more Hybrids standard. Honda is in a similar boat but less so due to smaller model lineup and a middling Acura.
Honorable mention goes to Mazda, sticking to it’s guns and nailing the premium car for mainstream prices segment, and getting the CX-50 Hybrid courtesy of Toyota. If Mazda is able to make a couple more models hybridized, they’ll continue to have considerable sales growth.
The insult added to injury in the Edwards story is that the Mitsu dealer doesn’t even occupy the entirety of the shitty little outbuilding. It looks like it has to share with the used car lot. At least the Pepsi machine is on their side.
Yeah, it looks like every dealership chain’s bargain lot, too, so they are pretty much implying that the Mitsubishis are on par with the cars that are only barely acceptable to sell on the lot instead of going to auction.
And the parapet where a logo is obviously intended to go is being left completely blank, so they don’t have to spend more than the bare minimum on Mitsubishi signage
“All I wanted was a
PepsiMitsubishi, but you wouldn’t sell it to me!”I went to your schools, your churches, your automotive dealerships…
People like you make me want to buy a Tesla.
Release your inner Stan, if you must.
What a weird way to tell on yourself.
In the annals of the absolute biggest car flops in history, where does the Cybertruck rank?
It has to beat the Edsel and the Pinto for sure at this point right?
Pinto was never a sales flop.
It was a big, big seller for the first few years of its 10 year run.
Even in its last year it sold over 185K units – numbers reduced mainly due to the introduction of the Fiesta in 1978.
Total production run was 3,150,943 cars over 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto
You wanna talk sales flop?
Mercury Bobcat.
Just 224,026 sold from 1975-1980
Was the Bobcat a flop though? They sold all they bothered to make, they just didn’t bother to make many. They likely cost about nothing to spin off the Pinto, but probably sold for more profit per unit. Added volume on the same production lines, and gave Mercury dealers a cheap entry-level car for barge buyers to pick up for their daughters and whatnot.
“Pinto was never a sales flop.”
Yeah I recall hearing back in the day that the Pinto was the car nobody liked but everyone bought.
Good question. I can only hope that every single human who wants one has already bought it and that the flopping will continue.
Nah, they’ll sell tons next year! Just ignore the inventory level of their zero mile “used” Cybertrucks.
The Pinto sold over 3 million in 10 years, with a peak of 500k in its best year, so hardly a flop.
Edsel sold 63,000 for 1958, against a target of 200,000, so they hit like 31.5% of the goal
Tesla tooled up to build a minimum of 250,000 Cybertrucks per year, with a published goal of getting production up to 500,000 per year within a few years.
They sold 39,000 in 2024 and about 16,000 in the first 9 months of 2025 and will likely finish the year around 20,000, so, the Cybertruck is technically a worse flop than Edsel
A non-zero amount were bought by SpaceX
That’s relative to the target, but I assume everyone at Tesla knows that target—and most others—are BS to keep the fanboys engaged. Relative to the actual market for $80k vehicles, it’s actually pretty good. We could wish enthusiast cars, even affordable ones, sold as well. Look at Volkswagen GTI sales for example, the numbers I find online are just a few thousand per quarter in 2024.
The target was hundreds of thousands per year, that’s what was communicated to investors and suppliers that’s what the factory was built and staffed for, and that’s literally the only valid metric for evaluating success or failure. The Cybertruck is a complete failure and there is no way Tesla can be turning a profit on it with sales so much lower than they need to be, production levels are unsustainably low
Mazda and Honda were quietly confident this year,with no major issues and attractive designs, putting them above all the other makes. Most others have caught recurring recallitis, even Toyota. Or are just plain ugly, cough BMW cough, fart.
Hopefully the NYT thing gets new eyes over here and helps defeat the google.
Also, thanks for the reminder to go switch the laundry.
“Oh, what’s this? Is The Autopian the only automotive website to be recognized by The New York Times as having one of the best sentences of the year?”
That’s a subtle way to say “oh, what’s this? Matt is the only Autopian writer to be recognized by the NYT?
Congrats
I think Adrian’s series on the Odious Rodius is in contention for the Pulitzer, so there’s that.
Tesla cooking the books? I’m shocked, well not that shocked, actually not shocked at all
Battery humour?
As someone who grew up in a Mitz family and has owned so many great Mitsubishis and always chose the EVO and the Eclipse and the FTO in Gran Turismo on my PS2 let me say that I don’t think that a single showroom in Iowa is their problem. They need to start manufacturing awesome cars again and then the showrooms will fill themselves. Their current lineup of instantly forgettable crossovers ain’t worth visiting.
Mild counterpoint: With a small refresh, the Outlander could be one of the best-selling CUVs. I think that’s a case of “lack of dealers” more than lack of a quality product. Especially the PHEV model.
Hard to tell since they’ve sold about 10 of them.
I live in a metro area of roughly a million people. We have a single Mitsubishi dealer now, and it presents itself mostly as a used car dealer. And a shitty one at that.
They certainly need more, and better cars. But they also desperately need at least mediocre dealers to convince people to buy them. They could release the best crossover of all time, but good luck getting people to willingly deal with Danny DeVito’s character from Matilda to get one.
I’m in Houston, we used to have 4 or 5 but I think there’s only 2 left. The quality of the dealership experience counts, but I also can’t blame the salesperson for wanting to sell a more popular brand to get the commission.
I’ve always found it interesting that manufacturers have apparently been totally fine with the obvious conflict of interest that occurs with these dealer groups. Why would a salesperson push a buyer towards an Outlander, when there’s a likely higher margin Sorento that the dealer actually has a chance to meet quotas on down the aisle?
It blows my mind how much power the dealers have. Growing up I always assumed the dealerships were owned by or at least controlled by the manufacturer but that ain’t true at all.
Instantly forgettable crossovers is almost all you can buy from every brand these days. At least theirs are cheap.
I don’t doubt that the majority of the sales would be CUVs since that’s what a lot of folks want but back in the day you could at least go to the lot to browse the sportscars on your way to buying an SUV.
Ah, “under-promise, over-deliver:” the secret of successful marital longevity and stockholder manipulation.
PS:
Top-notch spreadsheet topshot!
The “Mr. Scott” method.
Tesla makes numbers dance like Fred Astaire. I hope the shareholders are entertained.
What Tesla did makes perfect sense for someone trying to prop up share price instead of actually worrying about the company’s true bottom line. Combined with the recent drop in battery orders, this makes perfect sense as a damage control move. If any investors are still looking at Tesla in any traditional way, they’ve gotta be watching for the bottom to drop out. This might help mitigate that.
That said, you are absolutely right about the unpredictable and volatile nature of the stock, so who knows what will happen.
Tesla transitioned completely from a car manufacturer to a synthetic stock promotion company a good time ago. It will be fascinating to watch when the manufacturing bottom does drop out. I’m not convinced it will kill the stock.
Yeah, for as long as I’ve paid any attention, the stock price has been inflated beyond recognition, and I think a lot of why it’s still there is that a lot of investors are afraid they’ll miss out on future spikes by selling. I think one or two big institutional investors selling could topple the house of cards.
I wonder if the AI bubble bursting will finally pop the Tesla bubble
They’re a full tilt meme stock. They’re the definition of “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
Everyone knows Tesla has been way overvalued for a decade. The kicker is that they could have kept improving their cars, updating models, and improving the tech. They could have been a pioneering tech company in robotics and autonomous driving. They could have maintained their grip on the EV marketplace. But no, they needed to build the cybertruck cuz Elon said so, and it HAD TO BE STAINLESS STEEL, so they had to reinvent the wheel instead of improving their other products, and in the end people will stop buying their cars, a lot of people will get laid off, and Muskrat will still be a trillionaire. Yay America.
It was always a stock promotion company, it’s just living its truth now that it’s transitioned.
As I understand it, loans/securities against $TSLA are propping up Elon’s financial house of cards, and a lot of stuff starts to cascade when the share price drops below certain levels. So it may be a meme stock, but there’s 200 billion reasons to keep it inflated.
Yes, that’s true. And I think the creditors would rather have their money than the husk of Tesla (though I did initially suspect that the Twitter loans might have been a move toward a hostile takeover), but the whole house of cards depends on everyone playing along. A couple big institutional investors divesting would leave those creditors scrambling to buy before they end up with Musk’s shares valued at a fraction of the debt.