Tesla is on track for a second consecutive year of declining vehicle sales. According to average estimates, the delivery of 1.6 million vehicles is expected, which represents a drop of more than eight percent compared to the previous year. Interestingly, the compilations of estimates published by the company itself are more pessimistic than those compiled by independent agencies.
According to data compiled by Tesla’s team, analysts on average expect the company to deliver 422,850 cars in the fourth quarter, which is 15 percent less than a year earlier. For comparison, the average compiled by Bloomberg predicts the delivery of 445,061 vehicles, or a drop of 10 percent. While Tesla’s investor relations team has been collecting these estimates for years, this is the first time they’ve shared them publicly on their investor page.
Reasons for the decline and recovery in the third quarter
Sales of Tesla vehicles fell sharply at the beginning of the year, and the main reason is the renewal of production lines in factories in preparation for the redesigned Model Y, the company’s most popular vehicle. At the same time, it was a period in which CEO Elon Musk played a polarizing role within the Trump administration, which could affect the perception of the brand among some customers.
However, shipments jumped to a record level in the third quarter. American consumers then rushed to buy electric vehicles to take advantage of a $7,500 federal tax credit, which was phased out at the end of September. In order to partially compensate for the loss of these incentives, at the beginning of the current quarter, Tesla presented the basic versions of Model Y and Model 3, whose price on the American market is below 40,000 dollars.
But despite the drop in vehicle sales, Tesla’s stock is on track to end the year with a positive result. By the close of trading on Monday, the stock had risen 14 percent. Although this is a significant growth, it still lags behind the growth of the S&P 500 index, which recorded an increase of 17 percent in the same period.