After Tesla stunned the market on Wednesday with quarterly sales that were nowhere near as bad as feared, investors are racking their brains trying to figure out where tens of thousands of cars suddenly appeared.
Signs indicate smaller markets may be serving as an outlet valve, for example to offload cars built in Tesla’s Berlin factory now that many neighboring European markets have effectively shut the door on the brand due to reputational damage inflicted by CEO Elon Musk.
Wall Street is therefore asking questions about whether last month’s sudden spike in deliveries might have derived heavily from countries not otherwise known to be major sources of demand for Tesla. Nearly 60% of Tesla’s entire first half sales in Turkey were generated in June alone.
“Deliveries above expectations may be well received,” UBS analysts wrote in a research note on Thursday, but there are “[questions] about where these vehicles sold (likely not typical regions).”
Turkey reported 7,235 Tesla sales and 7.7% market share in June. BEV penetration reaches new record of 27.4% and Tesla has 28.2% of this segment. 🇹🇷
• Market share is 703 basis points or 1016% above the 3-month trailing average of 0.7%
• Tesla second best-selling brand
•… pic.twitter.com/0bduYmimGp— Roland Pircher (@piloly) July 2, 2025
Between Turkey and Norway, Tesla sold ten times as many cars in those two countries as it did in Germany last month. That’s in spite of the fact total passenger car sales in the aforementioned duo, even when combined, are still only half the size of the latter.
This surge in volume from unlikely places helped Tesla nail market consensus on Wednesday with 384,000 cars delivered in the second quarter, causing the stock to pop 5% in trading. Many experts that follow car markets closer than sell-side equity analysts had expected the number to come in closer to 360,000 vehicles given a lack of fresh product.
Part of the reason Tesla could surprise, however, lies with the lack of transparency from Tesla relative to other carmakers. It publishes deliveries once per quarter, and only provides a split between volume—combined Model 3 and Y sales—and luxury, in which it groups the S, X, and Cybertruck together.
Tesla did not respond to a request from Fortune for comment.
‘That’s just bananas’
The 7,235 vehicles sold in Turkey last month made Tesla the third-most popular brand after Renault and Volkswagen. For comparison, just 11,534 Teslas were sold in the country in all of last year, according to the local association ODMD.
In EV-friendly Norway, Tesla sold 5,646 vehicles in June despite car demand in the Nordic country being 1/20th the size of Germany. Musk’s brand was so strong it alone accounted for every third car sold in Norway last month.
“That’s just bananas,” Cox Automotive analyst Erin Keating told Fortune.
This could be a sign these markets are serving as a dumping ground for cars built in Tesla’s Berlin plant now that European demand has dropped off so steeply. In Germany, the continent’s largest car market by far, volumes for Tesla sank 60% in June to 1,860 vehicles and 58% across the entire first half.
Such an approach would make it difficult to sustain high volumes consistently, however, as smaller markets like Norway saturate more quickly. That means Tesla could eventually be forced to halt production in Berlin due to lack of demand.
In other more established markets like the United States, the picture is likewise grim.
“In the U.S. we’re seeing them drop precipitously,” Keating explained. “They’re continuing to lose share pretty aggressively and the only thing they’ve got going for them right now is they are not as exposed to tariff risks since their cars are American produced.”
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