Tesla deliveries beat Wall Street expectations on Tuesday as the electric carmaker’s price cuts and incentives helped stimulate demand.
The carmaker run by Elon Musk delivered 443,956 vehicles in the three months to the end of June, a 4.8 per cent fall year-on-year but better than the 438,000 that had been predicted by analysts for the second quarter.
The update sent its shares to a five-month high. They rose by more than 10 per cent in early trading and closed up 10.2 per cent, or $21.40, at $231.26 in New York last night, leaving them more than 24 per cent higher over the past five days.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, a US broker, said: “This was a huge comeback performance from Tesla and Musk. The worst is in the rear-view mirror for Tesla.”
The development comes as the Chinese rival BYD snaps at Tesla’s heels. The Shenzhen-based group sold about 426,000 electric cars in the three months to the end of June, a rise of about 21 per cent year-on-year.
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BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles in the final quarter of last year only for Musk’s company to retake the crown in the first three months of this year.
Like other Chinese manufacturers, BYD is contending with heavy import tariffs imposed by the EU and US on electric cars made in China.
Musk has implemented painful job cuts this year as Tesla wrestles with the fallout from a price war in the electric car industry, which is at its fiercest in China, the world’s biggest market for green vehicles. Still, price cuts helped to stoke demand for Tesla’s vehicles in the three months to June.
Last month Tesla shareholders voted in favour of a $56 billion pay package for Musk, despite a judge rescinding it this year.
Tesla’s line-up includes its popular Model Y crossover utility vehicles, Model 3 sedans and the new Cybertruck pick-ups, as well as the Model X SUV and flagship Model S sedan. In China, Tesla is offering a zero-interest loan as an incentive to get customers to buy a Model 3 or Model Y by July 31.
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• Electric vehicles heavily discounted to shift unsold stock
Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales disclosed by the electric vehicle maker. Tesla groups deliveries into two categories — Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, and all other vehicles — but does not report numbers for individual models or specific regions.
Deliveries by the group in the first quarter were disrupted by an arson attack at its factory in Berlin, as well as the impact on shipping of Houthi raids in the Red Sea.
Polestar, the Swedish electric vehicle producer that is controlled by the Hangzhou-based Geely and makes all its cars in China, said on Tuesday that it suffered an operating loss of $231.7 million in the first quarter as it grappled with tariffs and the price war.
