Last week already some moderately good news for the auto industry as a whole. Industry-wide car sales numbers for the quarter came in last week. While they were still down from a year ago, they’re still a massive improvement from the previous quarter, which is the most important thing for the industry right now. As it turns out, both Tesla and Nio, two electric car makers, revealed their own sales/delivery numbers, which were quite impressive, to say the least.
Out of all the carmakers out there, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has been one of the best performing so far. As such, many investors were wondering just how well the company would do this quarter. Going into October, many analysts were suspecting that Tesla could set a new, all-time record for car deliveries for Q2 2020. As it turned out, that’s exactly what happened.
Tesla stated on Friday that it had sold 139,300 cars during the second quarter, a tad bit higher than the 137,000 deliveries most analysts were expecting. That’s also a 44% growth rate compared to last year. Back in 2016, deliveries were sitting around 30,000 per quarter. By 2018, this figure had more than doubled, reaching around 70,000. In 2019, deliveries still stayed around the 100,000 range, slowing down significantly.
While Tesla hasn’t reported its full quarterly financial results just yet, most analysts also are expecting Tesla to report a record-high profit as well. Overall, it’s a pretty major achievement, given that around a year ago, many analysts were wondering whether the company would still stay in business at all.
Tesla wasn’t the only electric car maker to deliver better than expected results. Nio, a Chinese competitor to Tesla, also announced that it had delivered significantly more vehicles during this past quarter than what most analysts were expecting. Although significantly smaller than Tesla, Nio is making major inroads into the market, having delivered 4,708 vehicles in the month of September. That comes down to a 133.2% growth in comparison to last year’s figures.
However, analysts aren’t nearly as optimistic about Nio as they are about Tesla. One of the few bullish Wall Street analysts, Edison Yu, said that “the main push back we received on our bullish view I NIO’s brand does not create the same level of excitement and loyalty in China that Tesla or the Germany luxury automakers command.”
Both stocks ended Friday down a few percentage points, seemingly in contrast to these developments. Overall, however, it appears that the long-term demand for electric vehicles remains strong, and that these companies will continue to do well moving forward.
Tesla Company Profile
Founded in 2003 and based in Palo Alto, California, Tesla is a vertically integrated sustainable energy company that also aims to transition the world to electric mobility by making electric vehicles. It sells solar panels and solar roofs for energy generation plus batteries for stationary storage for residential and commercial properties including utilities. The Tesla Roadster debuted in 2008, Model S in 2012, Model X in 2015, Model 3 in 2017, and Model Y in 2020. Global deliveries in 2019 were 367,656 units. Tesla went public in 2010 and employs about 50,000 people. – Warrior Trading News
