After the electric vehicle manufacturer disclosed a large delivery miss for the first quarter, Tesla’s stock fell. Following a warning from Tesla in January that its vehicle volume growth rate would be “notably lower” than in 2023, the company released its Q1 delivery report.
Tesla announced 386,810 worldwide deliveries for the first quarter, significantly less than the 449,080 Bloomberg-compiled projections. Tesla produced 433,371 cars, less than the 452,976 predicted.
Comparing Tesla’s Q1 delivery total to its Q4 delivery total of 484,000 vehicles, there has been a noticeable decline. What worries investors more, though, is that the Q1 number is lower than Q1 of last year, when Tesla delivered 423,000 vehicles. The Q1 delivery data from Tesla represents the first yearly Q1 drop since 2020. On Tuesday, Tesla’s stock finished 4.9% lower.
“While we were anticipating a bad 1Q, this was an unmitigated disaster 1Q that is hard to explain away,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note shortly after the report’s release. “We view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story for Musk to either turn this around and reverse the black eye 1Q performance. Otherwise, some darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative.”
Looking across model lines, Tesla reported that it delivered 369,783 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles while producing 412,376 of them. With deliveries at 17,027, Tesla’s stated output of its “other models,” which presently comprise the Cybertruck in addition to the more costly Model S and Model X automobiles, was 20,995.
“The discrepancy between deliveries and production implies ~46,000 in incremental inventory, which confirms that beyond the known production bottleneck [in Fremont and Berlin], there may also be a serious demand issue,” Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Rosner wrote in a note following the release.
The delivery report for Tuesday is the result of a $1,000 price increase that Tesla made on Monday for its well-liked Model Y SUV across all three trim levels. In China, Tesla followed suit, raising the price of the Model Y Long Range version by 5,000 yuan ($675) to 304,900 yuan and the Performance version by 5,000 yuan to 368,900 yuan.
“Although the company most recently raised prices in the US and China as previously previewed, we believe it may have to revert, posing further downside risks to ASP for the rest of the year,” Deutsche Bank’s Rosner added.
Tesla also disclosed that on Tuesday, April 23, following the bell, it will release its first-quarter financial results.
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