Tesla Inc reported its first fall in yearly deliveries yesterday as lucrative year-end incentives for the Elon Musk-led electric vehicle (EV) maker's aging lineup and the new Cybertruck pickup failed to lure customers wary of high borrowing costs.
Musk had earlier predicted "slight growth" in last year's deliveries and offered a range of promotions including interest-free financing and free fast-charging to boost sales.
But reduced European subsidies, a shift in the US toward lower-priced hybrid vehicles and tougher competition especially from China's BYD Co (比亞迪) hurt Tesla.
Photo: Reuters
The US EV maker's shares closed about 6 percent lower.
"Lower deliveries reduces Tesla's growth and lowers the total addressable market for the company's ancillary services, including autonomous driving software, charging, and insurance," Morningstar Inc analyst Seth Goldstein said in a note.
"The slight decline highlights that the current vehicle lineup is nearing market saturation," he added.
As demand for EVs slows, Musk has pivoted his focus on building a self-driving taxi business that is expected to boost Tesla's value.
He also backed US president-elect Donald Trump with millions of dollars in campaign donations and analysts expect easier regulations from the new administration to help Tesla in the long run.
But with self-driving technology still under development and years away from commercialization, analysts have said Tesla would have to rely on its promised cheaper versions of current cars and the success of Cybertruck to achieve Musk's target of 20 percent to 30 percent sales growth this year.
The truck, known for its futuristic design, has been showing signs of weakness in demand. Tesla is yet to disclose the delivery numbers for its Cybertruck.
Tesla is also under pressure from legacy automakers. Its October registrations in Europe fell 24 percent, due to a tight race from Volkswagen Group, whose Skoda Enyaq SUV dethroned Tesla's Model Y as the best-selling EV in the region, according to data research firm JATO Dynamics.
The company said yesterday that it handed over 471,930 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and 23,640 units of other models, including the Model S sedan, Cybertruck and Model X premium SUV.
Overall, Tesla delivered 495,570 vehicles in the three months to Dec. 31, missing estimates of 503,269 units, according to 15 analysts polled by LSEG Group. It produced 459,445 vehicles in the period, down about 7 percent from a year earlier.
Deliveries totaled 1.79 million last year, 1.1 percenbt lower than the prior year and below estimates of 1.806 million units, according to 19 analysts polled by LSEG.
Tesla's deliveries last year were ahead of BYD, which reported a 12.1 percent rise in sales of battery-electric vehicles to 1.76 million, thanks to competitive prices and a stronger push into Asian and European markets.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS