Tesla, an electric car artificer, has managed to beat delivery expectations, of many analysts who predicted lower quarterly sales, by selling approximately 88,400 cars in the first quarter of 2020. Navigating the analyst’s prediction wrong, Tesla successfully produced 102,672 vehicles so far in the first quarter. Tesla will reveal its full first-quarter financial report later this month.
The first quarter is generally slow for the automakers, but Tesla was pushing all its efforts to break its previous quarterly records to beat the market. As per Tesla’s official production and delivery report, this was the company’s best-ever first-quarter performance.
Breaking down the report, Tesla reported delivering 76,200 Model 3 sedans and Model Y cross-over SUVs. Other than that, the company successfully delivered 11,234 Model S and X cars. Whereas, the analysts were predicting that Tesla won’t make more than 68,674 Model 3 and Y cars.
| Vehicles | Production | Deliveries | Subject to lease accounting |
| Model S/X | 15,390 | 12,200 | 16% |
| Model 3/Y | 87,282 | 76,200 | 5% |
| Total | 102,672 | 88,400 | 7% |
According to CNBC, analysts predicted that if they do not take into account the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, then Tesla could have delivered 95,528 vehicles, inclusive of 81,478 Model 3 and Model Y distributions and 14,050 for Model S and X vehicles.
In the first quarter of 2019, Tesla delivered 50,900 Model 3 electric cars and 12,100 Model S and X cars. Assuming those figures of 2019 first quarter, analysts predicted that Tesla won’t make a competitive change and might climb up with a few thousand more deliveries. Even so, Tesla made a boom.
In the last quarter of 2019, Tesla did also break the expectations of the analysts and broke through 112,000 vehicles. However, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted that he expects around 500k deliveries by the end of 2019. Later he corrected his estimations near 400k.
The production and delivery report of Tesla quotes that though the production was 2% lower than the previous quarter, Q4 2019, the company stocks rose over 17% right after the Q1 2020 announced, which the analysts also anticipated no more than 10.4%.Â
Some of the analysts did agree with Tesla’s efforts and didn’t predict downfall even after the Coronavirus crisis. FactSet was considering the deliveries to be as high as 79,908 and more.
Daniel Ives, a Wedbush analyst, also predicted that deliveries would improve considerably amid the COVID-19 environment. “It appears China’s production and demand are starting to rebound and should be a key growth driver over the coming quarters, although clear challenges remain in the months ahead,” Daniel said in a statement.Â
READ: Tesla is halting production at Fremont factory in response to coronavirus
Elon Musk stated in the past that he foresees Model Y to be in high demand besides other models as it is less expensive than Tesla’s other high-end models. This quarterly report also included Model Y deliveries which proved CEO Elon Musk right. Model Y started producing in January, in Tesla’s Shanghai factory and started delivering by March, which made the company successfully break its first-quarter record despite significant setbacks.Â
Tesla proved wrong what every analyst was predicting that COVID-19 will wind down the company from producing new cars as after the shelter in places orders its main plant in Fremont suspended the production. Moreover, car production was also stopped in Giga Shanghai.
With the first quarter over, other automakers also forwarded their quarterly sales report, which does not show such massive success. Competing EV automakers like Ford, General Motors, Volvo, and many others, seen comparatively fewer sales than Q1 2019 reports.
Volkswagen of America also reported March sales decreased by 42% which is one reason for its 3-times less overall quarter sales.
Despite the pandemic situation and shutting down of its production, Tesla says it has plenty of cash in hand to ‘successfully navigate an extended period of uncertainty.’ It could be a big reason behind Tesla’s success beyond expectations. How do you feel Tesla would do in next quarters of 2020? Do share and comment below.
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Featured image: Tesla
