Elon Musk's top-selling Tesla Powerwall knocked to sixth spot as home battery market booms
Elon Musk's company has gone from the country's top-seller in January to sixth place at the end of July, with its share of the home battery market dropping from 20 per cent to 5 per cent, according to energy consultancy SunWiz.
Home battery sales are booming as federal rebates kick in, with Australia on track to install as many batteries in 10 weeks as it installed in the whole of 2024.
Tesla's slip in market share potentially equates to hundreds of millions of dollars in foregone sales.
Tesla's brand reputation in Australia and overseas has cratered in recent years.
The closely watched Axios Harris poll in May found Tesla's reputation in the US was among the worst of any large company, largely due to Elon Musk's polarising politics.
In Australia, Tesla slid into the top-10 least trusted brands this year, according to a May report by market research company Roy Morgan. The report states:
Distrust in Tesla has increased rapidly over the last year as CEO Elon Musk has tied himself closely to US President Donald Trump.
Australian Tesla EV sales were down almost 60 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, although they rebounded slightly in the second quarter.
The growing distrust of Tesla is now affecting home battery sales, Rajat Roy, a marketing expert at Bond Business School, said.
"The negative associations with Elon Musk are rubbing off on Tesla home batteries," he said.
Brian Craigshead, CEO of Australian battery maker Energy Renaissance, said Mr Musk "couldn't have timed it worse".
Uncertainly about the long-term future of Tesla was likely putting off some consumers, according to Nitika Garg, a professor of consumer behaviour at UNSW.
"If something is costing you $10,000, you want a warranty and some trust in the brand being there to service your needs," she said.
But Warwick Johnston from SunWiz said the main reason for the decline in Tesla's market share was its product.
The company's latest home battery model, the Powerwall 3, costs more than many competing brands and comes in one size (13.5 kilowatt-hours, or 27kWh when stacked), which limits consumers' ability to get the optimal size battery for their home.
"Australia is currently averaging 17kWh per battery system, which doesn't play to Tesla's advantage," Mr Johnston said.
"If you want something between 13.5kWh and 27kWh, Tesla doesn't have an offering for you."
Tesla did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.
The company recorded a five-fold increase in battery storage revenue in 2024 to $2.55 billion, helped by big grid-scale battery contracts including a share of the $1.6 billion Collie battery in Western Australia.
The introduction of new federal rebates on July 1 has been followed by an unprecedented boom in home battery installations.
The $2.3 billion program offers a discount of around 30 per cent on batteries for households, businesses and community facilities such as sports centres and town halls.
In the first month of the scheme, more than 19,000 batteries were installed, with the pace quickly accelerating to about 6,700 per week, SunWiz data shows.
At that rate, Australia will install about 220,000 batteries in 12 months, compared to about 72,500 in the previous 12 months, Mr Johnston said.
"In 10 weeks, we'll have installed as many batteries as last year," he said.
The batteries being installed are also larger on average.
"If you look at capacity, within five weeks we'll have installed the same amount of capacity as last year.
"The federal rebate is having a material impact on battery sales."
The sales boom has seen many less established, "low-cost options" enter the market, Mr Johnston said.
Chinese companies Sigenergy, Sungrow and Alpha ESS are among the new market leaders.
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