Tesla announces Q2 deliveries: 90,650 electric cars — beating expectations

Tesla announced its Q2 deliveries and production numbers. The automaker confirmed 90,650 deliveries, beating expectations.

Only a few weeks ago, most Wall Street estimates put Tesla deliveries at 60,000 to 70,000 vehicles during the second quarter.

It was roughly in line with the overall automotive industry decline due to the global pandemic.

However, we reported last week that Tesla could surprise with near-record deliveries in the second quarter based on sources putting North American deliveries significantly higher than most people expected.

Following our report, several analysts updated their expectations with the Wall Street consensus settling up at about 80,000 deliveries.

Today, Tesla announced that it beat those expectations with just over 90,000 deliveries in Q2:

In the second quarter, we produced over 82,000 vehicles and delivered approximately 90,650 vehicles.

The market liked the news and Tesla’s stock jumped more than 9% in pre-market trading this morning.

90,000 deliveries mean that Tesla is up quarter-to-quarter from 88,000 deliveries during last quarter and down only 5% year-over-year.

That’s despite having to shut down Fremont factory for the first half of the quarter and having much of its operations affected by restrictions put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

For comparison, other automakers are reporting much greater drops in deliveries. Audi just reported a more than 30% drop in deliveries in Q2.

Here’s the press release from Tesla:

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In the second quarter, we produced over 82,000 vehicles and delivered approximately 90,650 vehicles.

	Production	Deliveries	Subject to lease accounting
Model S/X	6,326	10,600	14	%
Model 3/Y	75,946	80,050	4	%
Total	82,272	90,650	5	%

While our main factory in Fremont was shut down for much of the quarter, we have successfully ramped production back to prior levels.

Our net income and cash flow results will be announced along with the rest of our financial performance when we announce Q2 earnings. Our delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct. Final numbers could vary by up to 0.5% or more. Tesla vehicle deliveries represent only one measure of the company’s financial performance and should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly financial results, which depend on a variety of factors, including the cost of sales, foreign exchange movements and mix of directly leased vehicles.

Electrek’s Take

My prediction last week was “over 90,000 deliveries“:

Now I see 90,000 deliveries as achievable, and if Tesla can smooth deliveries in the next few days, they could even come close to the previous Q2 record, which I suspect Tesla is trying to beat.

So it didn’t exactly beat my expectations at that point, but the Wall Street consensus was just around 80,000 deliveries yesterday, so Tesla crushed those expectations by more than 12%.

Tesla employees should be commended for their work this quarter because those results are absolutely impressive in the current circumstances.

Now the big question is, Was this enough to break even?

We won’t know for sure for a few weeks, but I think it’s very likely. What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.