It could be a rough day ahead for Tesla (TSLA).The company has broken four quarterly car delivery records in a row, but then the results for the current quarter–which could be announced as early as Monday, Ocroer 2, are likely to show that deliveries have slipped.
Not seriously. But when a stock is trading at 70 times tailing 12 month earnings per share in a nervous market, a stumble is all it takes to send a share price down.
And this nervous market doesn’t need bad news from one of its leaders. Tesla shares are up 103% year-to-dart but down 3.05% over the last month.
The reasons for the delivery short fall are pretty simple. Tesla shut down some of its facilities over the summer to make upgrades. And tighter household budgets, higher prices due to inflation, and higher borrowing costs make buying a car a stretch for many consumers right now.
Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimate that Tesla delivered 456,722 cars in the third quarter. That would be below the 466,140 units delivered in the second quarter, and would be the first quarter-to-quarter decline since early 2022.
Even Tesla’s always promoting CEO Elon Musk has been sounding cautious lately. After telling investors in January that Tesla had the potential to produce 2 million cars in 2023, in July Musk said that the company would stick with an earlier target of 1.8 million cars.
And next year? “Our base case now is for Tesla to guide to about 2.1 million deliveries next year, versus current consensus of 2.3 million units,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner. “On the bright side, with the company not trying to push as much volume, there could potentially be less pricing pressure next year.”
Even the slightly lower delivery number is all but certain to mean the United States has moved above 1 million electric car sales this year, the first time it’s reached that threshold
