Tesla Shares Analyst Vehicle Delivery Consensus as It Works To Lower Expectations Ahead of Quarterly Decline

Tesla is currently working to significantly expand vehicle production, as a result, the company posting record after record vehicle production and delivery numbers has become somewhat expected.

For instance, last Quarter Tesla posted the best vehicle production and delivery number in the company’s 10-plus years history. In Q2 2023, Tesla produced 480,000 vehicles and delivered 466,000 vehicles. The quarter was also a record in all aspects including revenue and profits.

However, this quarter appears to be one in which Tesla will not set a record production number. This quarter Tesla is expected to post a rare quarter-over-quarter vehicle production and delivery decline.

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There are multiple reasons to account for this quarter's production and delivery decline. However, the main culprit for the decline is that Tesla has shut down production at multiple factories to either switch to a refreshed model or to upgrade production lines for efficiency and increase output.

Tesla’s Shanghai factory was shut down to switch to the refreshed Model 3 which was introduced at the beginning of this month. Tesla’s Texas factory was also shut down to perform upgrades to the Model Y production line and to prepare for Cybertruck volume production which is expected to begin in October.

In the long run, these shutdowns will help Tesla not only to produce better products but will also enable the EV maker to significantly increase vehicle production. However, public companies are required to post their performance on a quarterly basis which means all these shutdowns will show up as a decrease in Tesla’s production and delivery numbers quarter over quarter.

Wall Street has a habit of valuing companies based on short-term metrics which means when Tesla posts official Q3 production and delivery numbers in the next couple of days, there is a chance that the stock price might react negatively.

However, as the quarter draws to a close, Tesla appears to be trying to lower Wall Street’s expectations by directly reaching out to institutional investors with lowered analyst expectations for Tesla’s production and delivery this quarter.

An email sent by Tesla’s VP of Investor Relations, Martin Veicha states that the Wall Street consensus for Tesla’s Q3 deliveries is 455,000 vehicles. If the expectations are accurate, it would suggest deliveries have fallen by over 11,000 vehicles quarter over quarter.

$TSLA IR-compiled 3Q consensus is for 455K deliveries. This compares to Bloomberg’s 3Q consensus of 457K. My 3Q est is 445K. We continue to expect investors to overlook any reasonable miss (445K-455K) given the well-documented M-3 Highland transition (likely cost 15K-20K) and… pic.twitter.com/RJsqPCruq0
— Gary Black (@garyblack00) September 29, 2023

Elon Musk at the Q2 earnings call already stated that this quarter's production will go down due to factory closures, so the vehicle delivery decline will not come as a shock however, it’s still interesting that Tesla has chosen to highlight the decreased expectations only a couple of days away from releasing the official numbers.

This suggests that Tesla is looking to prepare investors for the decreased production and delivery ahead of releasing the official numbers on Monday. Currently, it’s hard to say whether Tesla will come above or below the 455,000 expected delivery number. However, we’ll be sure to keep you posted once we receive the official numbers from Tesla.

Until then, make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.

So what do you think? Disappointed to learn that Tesla’s production and delivery numbers will most likely decrease this quarter? Also, what do you make of Tesla’s move to prepare investors for this news? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.

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Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.