Tesla’s Quarterly EV Deliveries Jump 42%–But Miss Bullish Expectations

Elon Musk’s TeslaTSLA
reported its best quarterly deliveries of electric vehicles, up more than 100,000 units from a year ago, but was short of expectations by analysts who predicted even more bullish figures for the brand.

The company said it delivered 343,000 battery-powered vehicles worldwide during the third quarter, up from 241,300 a year ago. That was below a consensus expectation of 364,660 deliveries, according to CNBC, citing figures from FactSet’s Street Account. Tesla also said it 365,000 sedans and crossovers at its plants in California, Texas, China and Germany, the most ever in a single quarter.

The company, which unlike competing automakers provides no details about sales and production in individual global markets, cited difficulties it’s having in getting vehicles to customers quickly as output expands.

“As our production volumes continue to grow, it is becoming increasingly challenging to secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks,” Tesla said on its website. “In Q3, we began transitioning to a more even regional mix of vehicle builds each week, which led to an increase in cars in transit at the end of the quarter. These cars have been ordered and will be delivered to customers upon arrival at their destination.”

The quarterly figures come two days after Tesla’s quirky AI Day, where Musk debuted a rough version of the humanoid robot–wheeled onto stage by employees–that he claims will eventually cost less than $20,000 and be used as a laborer to perform difficult, repetitive tasks at its assembly plants. The company also gave a lengthy update on its efforts to perfect self-driving technology at an event that seemed focused mainly on recruiting computer scientists and engineers.

The bulk of Tesla’s deliveries is Model Y hatchbacks and Model 3 sedans, accounting for 325,158 units in the third quarter, or 95% of the total figure. The company said it will release financial results for the quarter on Oct. 19, after the close of regular market trading.

“Clearly, Tesla had some delivery challenges in the quarter with some isolated soft spots in China,” Dan Ives, an equity analyst for Wedbush said in a research note. “While the reasoning … from Tesla makes sense on paper, the Street will not be convinced and lingering worries about demand issues will persist until we hear around year-end unit guidance on Tesla’s conference call.”

Tesla shares fell 1.1% to $265.25 in Nasdaq trading on Friday.