Will Tesla’s massive price hike help the world’s largest electric vehicle maker return to growth and sales?
The short answer in numbers seems to be: yes and no.
Tesla on Sunday reported that it delivered 422,875 vehicles in the first quarter of 2023. While that total is 4% higher than the previous quarter and 36% higher than the same period a year ago, in terms of numbers production and delivery volumes, there is a worrying trend.
For the second quarter in a row, Tesla produced significantly more cars than it delivered to customers. And cumulatively over the past four quarters, Tesla built about 78,000 more cars than it sold, based on Tesla’s quarterly disclosures.
This follows a comprehensive Tesla discounts up to 20% made in January, and an additional Discount Model S and Model X up to $10,000 in March. That’s a stark change from 2022, when Tesla last made some sudden price increase thousands of dollars each time.
2023 Tesla Model X – Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
The recent drop in prices has resulted in some downward adjustment—or at least a pause in price increases—for the rest of the electric vehicle market. The Ford Mustang Mach-Efor example, dropped the price to $5,900 in January. And in February, market analysts said Electric vehicle market will become more and more competitivewith automakers needing to produce as many profitable gasoline-powered trucks as possible to afford electric vehicle development and drive electric vehicle growth.
In 2022, Tesla vehicle deliveries increased 40% year-over-year to 1.31 million vehicles, while production increased to 1.37 million.
Tesla has claimed for years that it is looking for long-term growth of 50% year-over-year, and during an investor call in January looking at Q4 results, CEO Elon Musk suggested that the automaker can do better than that and deliver two million vehicles by 2023 (although its official guideline is 1.8 million).
These numbers could be indicative of a weakening economy, stronger competition from other automakers, internal problems with Tesla delivering cars to customers, or all of that. the above. Look for more details from Tesla later this month.
