- Tesla delivered a record 466,000 cars in the second quarter of 2023, beating expectations and fueling a rally in the shares on Monday.
- But that masked an important stat: the company made more cars than it delivered for the fifth straight quarter.
- That means Elon Musk needs to figure out how to keep boosting demand as competition in the market heats up.
Wall Street is celebrating Tesla’s record deliveries in the second quarter, with investors pushing the stock up more than 7% Monday.
But the figure, which handily beat estimates, masks another important stat: for the fifth consecutive quarter, the company made more cars than it delivered.
Over the last three months, the electric-vehicle maker produced an all-time high of 497,700 vehicles, more than its 466,000 deliveries.
While the deliveries surpassed estimates by over 20,000, Tesla’s ballooning inventories mean Elon Musk still has his work cut out for him as far as generating even more demand, a task that will only get tougher as competition in the auto market stiffens.
As the Wall Stree Journal reported Monday, while Tesla has an apparent edge over upstart EV makers, it’s up against big and steady demand for traditional gas-powered cars. The average price for a gas car was basically flat year-over-year in June despite wider availability of most vehicles, the Journal said, citing data from JD Power.
Tesla delivery figures are a sign that aggressive price cuts by Musk’s car company are working to drum up demand, but there’s still more to be done, and it’s possible prices could drop again to address inventory bloat.
For now, investors are riding the wave of good news. The stock is up more than 125% over the last six months, and many took Tesla’s 10% quarterly jump in deliveries as a sign of more gains to come.
“This was a massive delivery beat and will send the Tesla bears back into hibernation mode,” Wedbush’s Dan Ives said in a tweet Sunday. “The price cuts was a smart poker move for Tesla and paying major dividends in the field, especially for the China market. This was a trophy case quarter for Musk & Co.”
But Goldman Sachs suggested Monday that Musk’s company could possibly slash prices again in an effort to grow demand and address any downside to margins. The stock could fall if those price cuts are go beyond Wall Street expectations, the firm’s strategists said.
Other downside risks to the stock price in Goldman’s view include increased competition, product delays, and operational risks connected to Tesla’s “high degree of vertical integration.”
As for Ives, he maintained a $300 price target for Tesla stock, an increase of about 8% from Monday’s price of $276 as the market headed to an early close for the July 4 holiday.
