Tesla’s sales drop 9% for first decline in four years as international EV competition revs up
NY Post
Tesla posted its first year-over-year drop in quarterly car deliveries since 2020, stoking concerns about the company’s global market share as international competition has revved up.
Elon Musk’s electric car maker on Tuesday said it delivered 386,810 vehicles globally in the first three months of 2024, according to a press release — down more than 9% from the 422,875 vehicle sales in the first quarter of last year. The number came in well below Wall Street’s expectations of 457,000 deliveries.
The Austin, Texas-based company had produced more than 433,000 vehicles intended to be delivered during the first quarter, meaning roughly 12% of its inventory went unsold.
Tesla blamed the shortfall on shipping diversions from the Red Sea, which has seen commercial vessels taking much longer and costlier routes away from Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope to dodge attacks from Houthi rebels — who have been attacking ships in a move of support for Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war.
An arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin proved to be another setback, Tesla said, as well as construction of its production ramp at its Fremont, Calif., factory.
The gap between production and deliveries suggests “that beyond the known production bottleneck, there may also be a serious demand issue,” Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner wrote in a note to investors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
