Tesla stock (TSLA) tumbled after the EV maker reported a significant delivery miss for the first quarter. The Q1 delivery report comes after Tesla warned in January that its vehicle volume growth rate would be “notably lower” than in 2023.
For Q1, Tesla reported 386,810 global deliveries, well below estimates of 449,080 as compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla produced 433,371 vehicles, which was also below estimates of 452,976.
Tesla’s Q1 delivery total is a significant drop sequentially from the fourth quarter, during which it delivered 484,000 vehicles. But more concerning to investors is that the Q1 figure represents a year-over-year decline compared to Q1 last year, when Tesla delivered 423,000 vehicles. Tesla’s Q1 figure is the first annual Q1 decline in deliveries since 2020.
Tesla stock closed down 4.9% on Tuesday.
“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 said it produced 412,376 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and delivered 369,783. Tesla’s reported production of its “other models,” which now include the Cybertruck as well as the more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles, came in at 20,995, with deliveries standing at 17,027.
“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.
Tuesday’s delivery report comes after Tesla hiked prices of its popular Model Y SUV on Monday across all three trim levels by $1,000. Tesla did the same in China, with the Model Y Long Range version rising by 5,000 yuan ($675) for a total cost of 304,900 yuan and the Performance version increasing 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 revealed that it will report first quarter results after the bell on Tuesday, April 23.
