Tesla TSLA Q4 2024 vehicle delivery and production numbers

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Tesla CEO and X proprietor Elon Musk speaks throughout an unveiling occasion for Tesla merchandise in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, 2024.

Tesla | By way of Reuters

Tesla posted its fourth-quarter automobile manufacturing and deliveries report on Thursday. Listed here are the important thing numbers:

Whole deliveries This fall 2024: 495,570

Whole manufacturing This fall 2024: 459,445

Whole annual deliveries 2024: 1,789,226

Whole annual manufacturing 2024: 1,773,443

Outcomes for the quarter represented the primary annual drop in supply numbers for Tesla, a decline from 484,507 within the fourth quarter of 2023. For the complete yr, deliveries fell from 1.81 million in 2023.

Tesla shares have been down greater than 3% in pre-market buying and selling Thursday.

Analysts had anticipated Tesla to report deliveries within the quarter of 504,770, together with 474,000 Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y EVs, based on a consensus of estimates compiled by StreetAccount. Tesla despatched some traders a company-compiled supply consensus of 506,763 automobiles, primarily based on a survey of 26 analysts. A broadly adopted unbiased Tesla researcher, who publishes as Troy Teslike, predicted deliveries of 501,000.

Deliveries are the closest approximation of gross sales reported by Tesla however should not exactly outlined within the firm’s shareholder communications.

The fourth-quarter report comes after an enormous late-year rally in Tesla’s inventory, which completed 2024 up 63%. In mid-December, the shares reached a record, eclipsing their prior all-time excessive from 2021.

It was a giant turnaround from the primary quarter, when the inventory plummeted 29%, its worst interval since 2022, as the corporate contended with declining gross sales regardless of value cuts and incentives for consumers. On the corporate’s first-quarter earnings name in April, CEO Elon Musk informed traders that whereas he anticipated “greater gross sales this yr than final yr,” the expansion fee would sluggish from 38% in 2023.

The largest story at Tesla within the again half of the yr was Musk’s function in President-elect Donald Trump’s election marketing campaign. Musk, the world’s richest particular person, poured in round $277 million to advertise Trump and different Republican candidates, and spent weeks on the street campaigning in swing states.

Elon Musk speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth take a look at flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024.

Brandon Bell | By way of Reuters

Musk, who additionally runs SpaceX and xAI and owns social community X, has been tapped to co-lead an advisory group to the Trump administration that can intention to slash federal spending, personnel and laws.

Sam Fiorani, a vp at trade analysis group Auto Forecast Options, informed CNBC in an e mail that Musk’s foray into politics could have “pulled his focus away from his core companies.” Nonetheless, the diploma to which traders or EV consumers care will not be mirrored in Tesla’s numbers till the primary quarter, he stated.

Till not too long ago, Tesla had been one of many solely automakers mass producing battery-electric automobiles. The corporate now faces an onslaught of competitors from home automakers, together with General Motors, Ford and Rivian in addition to BYD in China, Hyundai in Korea, and European auto giants BMW and Volkswagen.

Patrick George, editor in chief of InsideEVs, informed CNBC that he thinks Tesla nonetheless does many issues higher than another EV maker, particularly relating to its charging community. However Tesla’s greatest operational problem within the newest quarter was “the nuts-and-bolts job of being a automobile firm.”

‘Piling up on used automobile heaps’

Tesla has invested in a humanoid robotics initiative and chip improvement, and plans to provide a devoted robotaxi and begin a driverless ride-hailing service earlier than 2027. Whereas Musk and shareholders could not wish to view Tesla as only a automobile firm, many of the income are nonetheless derived from automobile gross sales.

George stated that Tesla made a mistake not bringing “extra inexpensive EVs in 2024,” and added that Cybertrucks — the corporate’s latest automobile — are “piling up on used automobile heaps.” The angular metal Cybertruck begins at round $80,000.

With opponents choosing up market share in Europe, Tesla skilled a steep drop in gross sales within the area in the course of the fourth quarter.

From January by the top of November, Tesla bought 283,000 automobiles in Europe, an roughly 14% decline from the identical interval a yr earlier, based on registration knowledge from the European Car Producers’ Affiliation, or ACEA. Registrations in Europe slid to 18,786 in November from round 31,810 a yr earlier.

The corporate’s enterprise in China was additionally pressured within the fourth quarter.

Fiorani stated that whereas the Mannequin Y is the second bestselling mannequin in China, “its progress is failing to maintain up with progress of the market.” By November, gross sales of the Mannequin Y have been up greater than 5% however general EV gross sales within the nation rose 8%, he stated.

In the meantime, BYD and different manufacturers in China, together with Chery, Li Auto, Jetour, LeapMotor and Aito, grew considerably quicker than Tesla. BYD can be organising crops exterior of China and exporting prodigiously.

In North America, Tesla has remained dominant. The corporate supplied a spread of incentives and price cuts, even on its hottest Mannequin Y SUV, in the course of the fourth quarter to drive gross sales. Nonetheless, Tesla skilled a buildup of stock.

In the course of the fourth quarter, the corporate despatched Cybertruck meeting line employees residence for just a few days, indicating that it could be trying to keep away from flooding the market with too lots of the automobiles.

Waiting for 2025, Musk stated on an earnings name in October that Tesla expects to offer lower-cost and autonomous automobiles in 2025, which ought to result in “20% to 30% progress” over 2024.