Tesla is slated to report second-quarter deliveries in just over a week. Wall Street estimates look too high, creating a risk for its stock.
Wall Street currently projects about 450,000 cars delivered by Tela in the second quarter. That prediction looks aggressive.
The electric-vehicle maker typically reports global quarterly delivery numbers on the second day of a new quarter. For the second quarter, Wall Street expects just under 450,000 units, according to FactSet—about 4% lower compared with the 466,000 units delivered in the second quarter of 2023.
The 450,000 figure, however, looks too high. Recent estimates have been closer to 415,000 units. On Sunday, a Tesla delivery researcher using the pseudonym Troy Teslike published his updated second-quarter estimate. He’s looking for 416,000 cars.
To project results Teslike aggregates registration data in the U.S. and sales data from Europe, among other things. His estimates are widely followed on social-media site X and used by many Wall Street analysts when checking their own delivery estimates.
The 416,000 figure is down almost 11% year over year, worse than the nearly 9% drop in the first quarter. Falling faster in the second quarter would be a surprise. The first-quarter result, with some 387,000 cars sold, missed the lowest Wall Street quarterly estimates and sent Tesla shares lower.
Another weak quarter could pressure shares again—and would set off another round of delivery and cuts to earnings estimates.
At the start of the year, Wall Street expected Tesla to deliver about 2.1 million cars and earn about $3.80 a share in 2024. Now analysts expect Tesla to deliver about 1.8 million cars, flat with 2023, and earn about $2.40 a share.
The estimate cuts are a big part of the reason Tesla stock is down about 26% so far this year coming into Monday trading.
Shares aren’t moving much off lower delivery estimates. Tesla stock was rising 0.2% in early trading Monday at $183.35 a share while S&P 500 futures were up 0.1% and those tied to the Nasdaq Composite were down less than 0.1%. Over the past week, Tesla stock was up almost 3%.
One reason shares are unaffected could be that investors don’t believe the 450,000 consensus delivery estimate. They may have already set their sites lower. Wall Street’s published numbers tend to move more slowly than investor expectations.
Another reason is that there is always a lot going on with Tesla stock. Investors are also awaiting Tesla’s Aug. 8 robotaxi event, where the company is likely to show off a prototype and update investors about its strides in making cars truly drive themselves.