Tesla said early this month that
deliveries in the last three months of 2022 rose 18 percent from the previous
quarter, disappointing Wall Street analysts and adding to pressure on Elon
Musk, the company’s CEO, to focus on making cars rather than overhauling
Twitter.
اضافة اعلان
Tesla said it delivered 405,000 electric
cars from October through December. Wall Street analysts had predicted that
Tesla would sell around 420,000 vehicles, up from 343,000 vehicles in the third
quarter.
The company sold a total of 1.3 million
cars in 2022, a 40 percent increase from the year before. That was short of the
50 percent annual
growth target Tesla had set for itself.
While the increases were impressive by auto
industry standards, Tesla has become the most valuable carmaker in the world by
growing at the sizzling rates more commonly associated with Silicon Valley
technology companies.
Indications that Tesla is mortal have contributed to a 65 percent decline in Tesla shares in 2022 and led investors to focus more on conventional measures like sales and profits rather than dreams of world domination
In recent months,
Tesla has appeared vulnerable
to competition from established carmakers and to rising borrowing rates which
made its electric cars more expensive for people taking out loans. Indications
that Tesla is mortal have contributed to a 65 percent decline in Tesla shares
in 2022 and led investors to focus more on conventional measures like sales and
profits rather than dreams of world domination.
The realityFourth-quarter deliveries were below the
forecasts of analysts, who had already lowered their expectations, and less
than
Tesla executives had suggested just a few months ago. Tesla said it
produced 440,000 cars during the quarter, 34,000 more than it delivered,
suggesting that supply chain problems and production woes were not the main
explanation for disappointing sales.
Martin Viecha, head of investor relations
at Tesla, said on Twitter that the gap between deliveries and production
reflected vehicles in transit to customers.
“No way to sugarcoat this,” Gary Black,
managing director of the Future Fund, an investment fund, said on Twitter. He
predicted that analysts would reduce their estimates of Tesla sales and profits
in 2023.
Tesla will report 2022 earnings on January 25.
In late December, Musk tried to reassure
Tesla employees, telling them not to fixate on the stock price and repeating
assertions that the carmaker would become the most valuable company in the
world, Reuters reported.
The competitionChina, the world’s largest car market, is a
big focus of investor concerns. The sharp rise of COVID-19 cases in China has
weighed on demand and forced the company to periodically suspend production at
its biggest factory, in Shanghai.
In addition, Chinese manufacturer BYD has
raced past
Tesla in electric vehicle sales in China, casting further doubt on
Musk’s ability to achieve world domination in the auto industry.
Wait times for Tesla models have shrunk, and the company has cut car prices in China and offered incentives to buyers in the US.
The growth of Tesla sales exceeds any major
rival in percentage terms. The company is also among the most profitable
carmakers in the world and is ramping up new factories in Texas and Germany.
But the company faces more intense
competition from traditional carmakers like Ford, General Motors, and
Volkswagen. Those companies have decades of experience mass producing vehicles
cheaply, and some investors believe that those carmakers could catch up with
Tesla more quickly than expected.
The marketTesla also faces softening consumer demand,
partly because of rising interest rates. Wait times for Tesla models have
shrunk, and the company has cut car prices in China and offered incentives to
buyers in the US.
Car buyers, especially the left-leaning,
environmentally aware consumers who tend to buy electric cars, also appear to
be turning away from
Tesla because of Musk. His erratic behavior at Twitter and
heated rhetoric on the social media platform have endeared him to conservatives
and Silicon Valley executives, but outraged other people.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush
Securities who has pleaded with Musk to focus his energy on Tesla, said the
fourth-quarter deliveries were decent considering the difficult economic
environment. “We believe this was a relatively good performance,” Ives said on
Twitter.
Tesla sales could get a boost after its
cars became eligible for US federal incentives on January 1. A new law
abolished a limit on the number of vehicles from any one manufacturer that were
eligible for tax credits of up to $7,500. Tesla had used up its quota.
Tesla cars made at the company’s factories
in Texas and California also meet the requirement that vehicles must be
manufactured in the US, Canada, or Mexico to be eligible for credits.
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