Shares in Tesla rose 10% on Tuesday after it revealed a quarterly sales performance that wasn’t as bad as analysts and others had forecast.
That’s not to say the company’s "deliveries" (how it terms sales) rose—they didn’t—but the fall from a year ago was smaller than forecast, and it seems the company also reduced its stock of unsold vehicles at the end of the first quarter.
Tesla, however, had nothing to say about another weak effort in China, the company’s most important market and production facility.
The company said it produced 410,831 vehicles and delivered 443,956 in the June quarter. Deliveries in the second quarter fell 4.8% from 466,140 a year earlier but were up nearly 15% from the weak first quarter’s 386,810 units.
Analysts had expected Tesla deliveries to come in around 439,000 in the three months to June 30.
Tesla groups deliveries into two categories—Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, and all other vehicles—but doesn’t report numbers for individual models or specific regions.
For the half year, Tesla produced 830,076 vehicles, down 6.5% from 889,015 vehicles in the first half of 2023.
We know that around 10,000 Cybertrucks, the overpriced clunky-looking pickup EV, were produced in the first six months of the year.
Meanwhile, China’s Passenger Car Association released figures on Tuesday showing that Tesla China sold 71,007 vehicles in June, including domestic and export sales.
That's down 2.2% from 72,573 in May and more than 24% under the 93,680 vehicles in June 2023.
In the second quarter, Tesla China sold 205,747 vehicles, down 16.7% year-on-year and off 76.9% from the first quarter.
In the first half of the year, Tesla China sold 426,623 vehicles, down 10.5% from a year ago.
Tesla had more than 46,000 vehicles in its stocks at the end of the March quarter. Judging by these figures—sales topping production by more than 33,000 in the second quarter—the holdover of unsold vehicles at June 30 has shrunk.
