Tesla sales lag Wall Street estimates, and stock drops more than 6%
Tesla reported 2024 sales on Thursday.
Tesla Inc. disappointed investors on Thursday, reporting sales of 495,570 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter and of 1.789 million for all of 2024, falling slightly short of Wall Street estimates and, in a first for the company, lagging the previous year’s total.
Tesla’s stock fell more than 6% on the news, stretching its losing streak to a fifth session and dipping below $400 for the first time in three weeks.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected the EV maker to report fourth-quarter deliveries of 498,000 vehicles. For the year, the FactSet consensus was for the sale of 1.793 million vehicles.
Tesla sold 1.809 million vehicles in 2023, up from 1.3 million in 2022.
Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush said that Thursday’s sales numbers were “respectable” and called the stock weakness a knee-jerk reaction.
“We remain highly confident in Tesla’s ability to accelerate delivery growth” this year by 20% to 30%, he wrote, as the company is expected to launch a lower-priced EV in early 2025.
That growth target comes from none other than Chief Executive Elon Musk, although many on Wall Street think the guidance might be too optimistic.
The “golden goose” for Tesla remains its advanced driver-assistance systems and the pivot toward robotaxis, Ives said.
Stephen Gengaro at Stifel expressed a similar sentiment. “Overall, we reiterate our belief that traction on [Full Self Driving] and Cybercab will be critical drivers to [Tesla] shares in 2025,” he wrote.
Tom Narayan at RBC Capital Markets noted that buy-side expectations were closer to about 520,000 vehicles sold in the quarter.
“For the U.S., we think investors were expecting a strong pre-buy ahead of potential cuts to IRA consumer credits as well as tariffs,” Narayan said. “While we do think this took place to some degree, it likely was not as strong as some were expecting.”
Tesla delivered 471,930 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the quarter and 1.679 million of those vehicles for the full year.
The company delivered 22,727 other models in the quarter and 94,105 other models in the year. It also deployed 11.0 gigawatt hours of energy-storage products.
Tesla set the date for its fourth-quarter earnings report for after market close on Jan. 29.
Gengaro said he’ll await details then about Tesla’s margins, specifically automotive sales gross profit per delivery not subject to leasing, “which will shed some light on pricing [and] discounts,” he wrote.
Tesla shares gained more than 60% in 2024, rallying later in the year as the company unveiled its robotaxi and as most on Wall Street viewed the new Trump administration as a positive for Tesla’s autonomous-vehicle efforts.
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