Tesla (TSLA) delivery estimates are all over the place

Tesla (TSLA) is about to finish its quarter, and it is a confusing one for Wall Street. Delivery estimates are all over the place.

We reported earlier this month on Tesla analysts falling over themselves to downgrade their delivery estimates for the quarter.

Tesla has been growing deliveries at a roughly 50% rate per year until last year, when it started to slow down. Unlike other companies, Tesla doesn’t give clear guidelines, and therefore, analysts are left to try to figure out themselves with the available data.

Over the last few weeks, there’s one thing that analysts do agree on when it comes to Tesla: deliveries are going down.

In comparison, Tesla had record deliveries of 484,507 vehicles last quarter for a 20% year-over-year growth rate, and it delivered 422,875 in Q1 2023.

For Q1 2024, delivery estimates on Wall Street have been consistently reduced over the last few weeks.

Yesterday, Wedbush was the latest firm to update its estimate to 425,000 deliveries – down from 475,000. But the numbers are all over the place. Electrek has found estimates between 420,000 and 480,000 deliveries during the quarter.

Troy Teslike, one of the analysts with the most data-driven estimates, has been consistently downgrading his estimates as more data has been coming in. He is now down to an estimate of 420,000 deliveries:

The overall Wall Street consensus has come down quite a bit since this report, and it is now closer to 458,500 deliveries. However, as you can see, some suspect that it could be way lower.

Tesla is expected to release its Q1 2024 delivery and production numbers early next week.

Electrek’s Take

I think anything below 450,000 would be pretty bad for Tesla, but 420,000 would be awful. It would not only be way down from last quarter but even down year-over-year after an entire year of Tesla adding production capacity.

It’s also Cybertruck’s first full quarter of deliveries, but we shouldn’t expect it to contribute significantly.

420,000 would likely mean Tesla inventory growing, which would be difficult for Tesla’s financial results at the end of next month.

Now, Tesla does have a few excuses, especially the arson attack on Gigafactory Berlin, but at this point, I think it’s clear that demand is the problem.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla ends up using the excuse of Elon’s request to perform FSD Beta test drives before each delivery, which is undoubtedly going to increase the delivery workload at the end of the quarter.

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