Tesla shipped record 310,000 cars in Q1, but slightly trailed analyst forecasts

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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) reported Saturday that it delivered some 310,000 vehicles during Q1 – a record number of shipments, but a level that slightly trailed analyst forecasts.

The electric-vehicle maker said it delivered 310,048 cars during the latest quarter, up 67.8% from 184,800 vehicles shipped in the same period last year. Shipments also rose about 0.5% from Q4, when the company delivered its previous record of 308,600 vehicles.

Still, the latest period's shipments trailed analysts' reported consensus estimate of 317,000 vehicles.

Analysts had predicted the computer-chip shortage that's currently hitting automakers the world over would hurt TSLA's Q1 output. However, the company said in a statement Saturday that it managed to ship the number of cars it did "despite ongoing supply-chain challenges and factory shutdowns."

Tesla (TSLA) added that shipments during the latest period consisted of about 295,300 Model 3 and Y vehicles, as well as 14,700 Model S and X cars.

Additionally, TSLA reported that actually built 305,407 vehicles during the latest quarter. That's down slightly from the 305,840 cars that Tesla (TSLA) produced in Q4, but up 69.4% from the 180,338 units the firm churned out in the same period last year.

TSLA recently opened a new plant in Germany, and also cut the ribbon on a production facility in Texas last year.

Tesla also disclosed Saturday that it will release Q1 earnings on April 20 after the market closes. The company said executives will host a live Webcast at 5:30 p.m. ET that day to discuss the company's quarterly results.

Seeking Alpha contributors have mixed views on where the automaker's stock is heading. Columnist James Hanshaw recently laid out a "Strong Sell" thesis for the stock, while fellow contributor Pearl Gray Equity and Research argued that TSLA is a buy.

Comments

[KEEPYOURMONEY]

Get ready AMZN earnings this week will blow away so good that it will also bring TSLA up . They both are heading a few hundred higher

[SA Analyst Are Bag Holders]

Boring 🥱 Toyota sold more vehicles in Q1. Toyota still continues to carry the crown 👑. Man oh Man this Tesla trend is putting me to sleep 🥱. I wonder if that road runner and cybertruck will be delayed. Yeah both will definitely be delayed.

[Gruss_Gott]

@Yishai Yisrael "Toyota sold more vehicles in Q1"

But that's not the part that matters to investors though, right? It's the PROFIT - that's why we invest, right? A return?

Aren't we all looking for a company with growing profit and falling costs?

First, let's look at 2021 units sold:
* Toyota ~10.5M
* Tesla ~1M
So Toyota sold 10x more units than Tesla ...

Now let's look at 2021 profit of auto sales, i.e., excluding one-time items:
* Toyota ~$19B
* Tesla ~$5.5
Whoa! Toyota sells 10.5x more, but is only <2.9x more profitable ...
BUT WAIT!

Tesla is going to get back a lot of 2021 costs + gain more efficiency in 2022:
- With 2 new factories on 2 continents, Tesla has no more expedite costs
- Way lower capex spend now that those factories are built
+ New giga-castings
+ New 4680 cells
+ Cheaper LFP batteries
+ Price increases

And, of course, if Tesla doubles production that'll at least double profit, right?

So, already Tesla is WAY more profitable than toyota, and for supply limited company the trend is clearly growing Tesla's profit ...

... and $TSLA is selling into a market with a massive CAGR while Toyota is selling into a collapsing market ...

So maybe Toyota isn't such a good comparison?

For smart investors anyway ...

[Bill Cunningham]

@Gruss_Gott

"Way lower capex spend now that those factories are built"

That's not an expense. Later depreciation on those factories is though, so expenses will be considerably higher going forward.

[Tdot]

Interesting point Bill. Musk said something the other day about the Austin project costing $10 billion, although it isn't clear how much of that is specifically Capital Expense. Anyway yes CapEx would flow on the Assets balance sheet from Cash to Property as "neutral", and then start to wind down in value as an asset depreciation over time, and by the way providing a tax benefit along the way.

[KEEPYOURMONEY]

Rumor has it behind secret closed meetings Elon is going to surprise all the real pickup and is going to be so much better looking than the proto he is bluffing and fooling the competition with the pre-announcement of what it will look like . Get ready it will blow everyone away as teh best looking pickup with guts . Imagine it being actually more like the S . Don't put it past Elon he is a true marketing genius

[Pale Blue Dot Research]

But of course they will release earnings on 4/20. They troll Wall Street so hard.

[Skip181sg]

@Pale Blue Dot Research Its funny but coincidental. Wednesday of the 3rd fiscal week of the quarter!!

[Bsoidonym]

Jp Morgan is impressed ...

"JP Morgan raised its price target on Tesla Inc. stock to $335 from $325, after the electric car company posted quarterly deliveries that were above its forecast. Tesla said it delivered 310,048 vehicles in the quarter, 0.8% below the company's own expected but "modestly higher" than the 293,500 that JP Morgan analysts had forecast."

[Ruffdog]

@Bsoidonym Another reason not to invest is JP Morgan!

[tech_eval]

Congrats to Tesla! Now where is my $25k BEV SUV with 200 mile range? Then we could finally make a dent in ICE truck sales.

[Ruffdog]

@tech_eval Why would TESLA, a luxury auto maker, even think about even thinking about spending R&D $$$ on developing a cheap $25K EV? Demand for high margin TESLA MODEL S, E, X, Y are far out striping production.

[tech_eval]

@Ruffdog Because Tesla's mission is to replace ICE. And that won't happen (particularly in the US) when they're just for the well-to-do.

[Tdot]

Musk has already said there will be no $25k Model 2 or Z or whatever, that was just another money losing dream that got cancelled, at least for the US market. It is conceivable they could do it in China though, where the cost of manufacturing is less than half that of the US.

The cheapest US Model 3 sedan, which was originally supposed to sell for under $25k after tax incentives, now goes for a whopping $47k just to avoid burning more cash on it in the US. And the Model Y hatchback now starts at a stunning $63k.

If any other automaker did this, it would be considered illegal monopolistic and opportunistic price gouging, and most likely result in congressional investigations.

[blacky_]

4000 more deliveries quarter on quarter. That is nothing for a stock priced this high (not that fundamental would matter :-))

[doubleE]

@blacky_

Tesla has never raised deliveries from q4 to q1.
Tesla has never been cheaper on a p/e or p/s basis

[Ruffdog]

@blacky_ Produced 4,000 more EVs with the Fremont Model X and S assembly line shutdown for the month of March for retooling.

[Ruffdog]

@doubleE Deliveries continue to increase multiplied be a unit profit margin that also continues to increase.

[mrbuseco2]

"Delivered"? Delivered to who? To actual paying customers or to dealers to have them sit around in showrooms? Notice they don't use the word "sales". I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla is recording deliveries to dealers as sales on their books in advance, yet they are subject to return by the dealers which I suspect will happen.

[deercreekvols]

@mrbuseco2

Has never been about sales. It is all about deliveries.

Different, but par for the course for Tesla.

[Russell's Decalogue]

@mrbuseco2 There are no Tesla dealers. This is one of the more basic facts about the company.

[eazar001]

@Russell's Decalogue That's how these people roll. They gaslight the hell out of investors in a company they feel people don't have a right to invest in (for whatever reason), make snarky/condescending comments towards them on every news article, and when Tesla investors get defensive over directed attacks, they pretend they don't know why. My guess is either these guys don't live in California, or are blind. I lived there for more than 30 years, and after returning to Northern California for vacation, I saw so many Teslas on the road, I couldn't believe my eyes.

[MedTechBio]

Confirmed Shanghai will not open this week.

[Hanamogera]

@MedTechBio so line down for the second week?

[NaturalBornSceptic]

Meanwhile, whilst the media and fanboi's orgasm over a 67% increase in Tesla sales, BYD grows its sales by over 400% to 1Q 2021 and is only just short of 300K itself. It will likely surpass Tesla in EV sales this year.

[User 1377901]

@NaturalBornSceptic you should go to the BYD forum and celebrate with the BYD fanboys

[Russell's Decalogue]

@NaturalBornSceptic A real skeptic would know that around half of those are plug-in hybrids containing a gasoline engine.

It's sales of their PHEVs that have been exploding, although the BEVs are doing nicely too.

[Robert S Dot]

@NaturalBornSceptic this is like comparing a pocket calculator to a smartphone.

[Bcbp]

Bitcoin is surging. Tesla may rise in sympathy.

[ttanphat]

Tesla stock and company has nothing to do with each other . Tesla is a meme stock with revent musk is a cult leader . Tesla stock is a momentum meme stock and it will continue to perform until money worth something . Right now cash still trash so it does not matter even Gme run for gods shake and GME piece of Sht

[thatswhatshesaid]

@ttanphat not a meme stock

[Bcbp]

Earlier this year whenever bond yields were higher tech stocks got beaten, now whenever yields move higher that's when tech stocks usually do better. What is going on here?!

[Legacy Legends, LLC]

@Bcbp

Tesla is in a league of it's own, breaking records, growth on steroids!

[solucky]

@Legacy Legends, LLC

" Tesla is in a league of it's own, breaking records "

Its at least the only company that sell old cars as new ...or sell more cars than they produce :-).

Q3/4 and Q1 2022 combined again a gap over 10K cars

[julianbook]

@Bcbp Tech is being set up for a big fall.

[Joe Away from Beach]

if you $60,000 or so to buy a new car, the suggestion here to lease a Honda Ciivic or Toyota Corolla, and put the rest of the $60,000 into Tesla stock.

[kenberthiaume]

@Joe Away from Beach that's terrible advice.

[Justin Gavrell]

@kenberthiaume should prob. Diversify it a bit more, but other than that hes right.

[Paolo Gaarten]

Tesla is extremely overvalued. Dissapointing deliveries.

[Legacy Legends, LLC]

@Paolo Gaarten

Not disappointing deliveries, but disappointing financial journalism, Tesla beat deliveries!

[deercreekvols]

@Legacy Legends, LLC

What was Tesla's guidance on deliveries for the Quarter.

Analyst averages are ranging from 309,000 (Barron's) to 312,000 (Forbes) to 317,000 (as listed above).

Did Tesla issue any guidance or were these numbers all analyst-generated?

Thanks.

[Themave]

@deercreekvols Tesla said they would grow 50% year over year for the next several years to a decade. They grew 68 % Q1 2021 vsQ1 2022.

[Stefan Redlich]

Quality is still pretty bad. Just wonder when they will run into supply chain issues with China moving into more lockdowns and raw materials way too expensive. They just increased German Tesla M3 pricing overnight by a hush €7.000 OMG

[thatswhatshesaid]

@Stefan Redlich 🤡

[SharkDude]

Still the most overvalued stock of all time.

[thatswhatshesaid]

@SharkDude how? 🤡

[mrbuseco2]

@thatswhatshesaid Toyota: P/E 10.7 Market cap: $248B Revenue: $169B
Ford: P/E 8.7 Market cap $67B Revenue: $136B
Tesla: P/E: 101.4 Market cap $ $1.12T Revenue: $54B

Tesla has the lowest revenue numbers, yet highest P/E and highest market capitalization, that's how. The valuations are nowhere near inline with competitors. It's a meme stock. See you when it reverts to the mean...

[p.investment]

@mrbuseco2
You forgot to add expected growth numbers & profitability development. Ratios are the past. Stocks is about the future mate.

[TraderDad22]

"Still, the latest period's shipments trailed analysts' reported consensus estimate of 317,000 vehicles." - Awwwww too bad soooo saaad ! :-D

[SkepticalInvester]

@TraderDad22 yeah..missed a lot :)

[PNUTBTR]

Numbers don’t lie. Production up 69.4% from Q12021. Tesla will again grow 70% in 2022 (1.6mm units) and each year thereafter. It’s basic math people!

[Amos Tuck]

@PNUTBTR

"Tesla will again grow 70% in 2022 (1.6mm units) and each year thereafter."

Umm...NO!

Trees don't grow to the sky; 70% growth doesn't continue indefinitely. (The math doesn't foot.)

Tesla's selling 40% fewer cars than Toyota per quarter but has 5X the market cap.

This is insane.

The stock is a hyper-bubble.

90% downside

[dmce]

@Amos Tuck - 68% Q1 YoY growth was achieved with virtually no deliveries from Berlin and Austin. Those factories should add 150K to 2022 deliveries along with continued capacity expansion at Shanghai and Fremont.

Toyota sales declined 15% in the US in Q1; Tesla sales grew 63% there. Toyota shrinking while Tesla is demonstrating hyper growth is driving the market cap discrepancy.

[Keto4me]

@Amos Tuck
"The stock is a hyper-bubble.
90% downside"

I want to see your response to dnce's answer immediately below.

[oonert]

The Model Y is exceptionally ugly. The cyber truck will be delayed further. I don't find new factories making the same ugly models very bullish. Is Tesla new model pipeline broken?

[PNUTBTR]

@oonert ugly or pretty who cares when they are among top 3 selling EVs worldwide.

[TraderDad22]

@oonert I just hope that folks listen to you and sell. I would like to buy me some TSLA cheap. Thanks!

[solucky]

@PNUTBTR

" ugly or pretty who cares when they are among top 3 selling EVs worldwide "

The only brand that sell EV global so it should be easy to be under the top 3 :-).