A day after the electric vehicle manufacturer disclosed its 2022 fourth-quarter vehicle production and delivery figures, shares of Tesla fell 14% on Tuesday.
The closest representation of Tesla’s declared sales is through deliveries. The business reported 1.31 million deliveries overall for the year and a total of 405,278 deliveries for the quarter. Despite being a record for the Elon Musk-led manufacturer and a 40% increase in deliveries from the previous year, these figures fell short of analysts’ predictions.
As of December 31, 2022, Wall Street was anticipating Tesla to announce about 427,000 deliveries for the last quarter of the year, according to a consensus of analysts’ predictions gathered by FactSet. The FactSet consensus includes estimates that were updated in December and had a range from 409,000 to 433,000.
These more current projections were in accordance with a company-compiled consensus given out by Martin Viecha, vice president of investor relations at Tesla. Tesla’s stock saw a severe year-long sell-off in 2022, which prompted CEO Musk to warn staff members not to be “very concerned by stock market madness” in late December.
Musk has attributed a portion of Tesla’s falling stock price to rising interest rates. However, many claim that the $44 billion Twitter acquisition was more to blame for the decline. The share price decline of the corporation, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, is a “window of opportunity to buy.”
“There are challenges for all auto businesses to surmount in the year ahead,” they wrote in a report on Tuesday. These obstacles include a worsening macroeconomic backdrop, record-high unaffordability, and growing competition. However, given this context, we believe Tesla has the ability to extend its lead over the competition in the EV race by taking advantage of its cost and scale advantages.
