Tesla Quarterly Deliveries Hit Record As Car Maker's Recovery Speeds Up -- Update
October 02 2020 - 9:47AM
Dow Jones News
By Robert Wall
Tesla Inc. vehicle deliveries hit a new record in the most
recent quarter, accelerating the Silicon Valley car maker's
recovery after sales slowed during the height of the pandemic.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company on Friday said it sold
139,300 vehicles in the quarter ended Sept. 30, slightly ahead of
the 137,000 deliveries analysts surveyed by FactSet expected and
44% above the prior-year figure. The figure topped the previous
high of 112,000 vehicle handovers Tesla achieved in the final
quarter of 2019, the last not impacted by the pandemic.
Tesla has delivered slightly more than 318,000 vehicles over the
first nine months of this year despite a temporary shutdown of its
lone U.S. car plant in Fremont, Calif., as local health officials
tried to halt the spread of the coronavirus. The company in January
said it aimed to deliver more than 500,000 vehicles in 2020, an
increase of at least 36% from last year's total.
Tesla shares retreated more than 4% in premarket trading Friday.
Delivery figures, though ahead of the latest estimates, fell short
of Wall Street's lofty earlier estimates that were pared back this
week.
Wall Street expects Tesla later this month to report a record
quarterly profit. The result would extend the company's longest
streak in the black to five consecutive quarters and keep the
company on pace for 2020 to be its first with a full-year profit.
The results have fueled investor excitement in Tesla -- its shares
have more than quintupled this year -- and in electric-vehicles
broadly.
Deliveries in the September quarter were dominated by the Model
3 sedan and the Model Y sport-utility vehicle that first started
going to customers in March. Tesla sold a combined 124,100 of those
models. The company also delivered a combined 15,200 of the
higher-priced Model S and Model X vehicles.
The car maker also has benefited from demand in China, where it
inaugurated a production facility late last year and where it has
seen strong demand for the Model 3.
Tesla's report Friday showed further signs it has moved past the
effects of the pandemic. Production in the past three months
rebounded to 145,036 vehicles. Output fell to 82,272 vehicles in
the second quarter, the period covering most of the U.S. factory
closure, from 102,672 vehicles in the first three months of this
year.
Mr. Musk last month said he expects Tesla to build 20 million
cars annually within the decade, or almost twice as many as
Volkswagen AG produced last year as the world's bestselling
individual car company.
To help deliver that growth, Tesla is expanding. The company is
building a new car plant outside Berlin and this year said it would
build a plant near Austin, Tex., its second U.S. vehicle plant.
Tesla last month said it planned to raise up to $5 billion through
occasional stock sales, which would help finance growth plans.
But the lofty targets come with obstacles. Traditional car
makers that were slow to embrace electric vehicles are rapidly
introducing new models. Volkswagen last month announced plans for
an all-electric SUV and Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and
others are introducing models that could steal sales from
Tesla.
Demand is likely to get a boost from California's recently
proposed ban on the sale of gas and diesel-powered cars by
2035.
Mr. Musk has said efforts to scale up also could be hampered by
limited battery production capacity. Tesla, he said, would build
more batteries itself and increase purchases from suppliers to
support its plans. At a battery-focused event last month, he also
said Tesla plans to offer a $25,000 car within a few years that
could lure prospective buyers that haven't been able to afford
Tesla's pricier models.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 02, 2020 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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