Tesla (TSLA) is set to make third-quarter deliveries as early as Wednesday, an outcome that could push the stock beyond the recent strong gains it has already seen.
Wall Street expects Tesla to deliver about 461,000 electric vehicles globally in the third quarter, with annual deliveries estimated at 1.79 million, according to Bloomberg. This number would be a sequential improvement from the second quarter when Tesla delivered approximately 444,000 vehicles; However, it will be fewer than the 466,000 electric vehicles delivered a year ago.
Tesla stock has risen more than 20% in the past month, fueled by optimism about the upcoming robotaxi event on October 10 and good news coming out of China. Which indicates an increase in sales there.
A strong third-quarter delivery report should also ease concerns about a “significantly lower” annual growth rate for vehicles, which Tesla warned about after the first quarter.
Wall Street analysts agree with the narrative that sales have improved and, in some cases, boosted expectations.
Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter has raised his delivery estimates and now expects 459,000 EVs to be delivered globally, with a full-year forecast of 1.75 million units. While Potter’s estimates are still slightly below the consensus, Potter believes Tesla may report its best quarter ever in China.
Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects deliveries to exceed 470,000 units in the third quarter, easily beating estimates. Levy and Barclays cite July data for global EV sales and China sales based on August registrations and production data.
“Our delivery estimate is for volume to increase by ~6% sequentially and up to ~8% (y/y) – which would be Tesla’s first quarterly result in 2024 with positive growth (y/y),” Levy wrote in a note to clients. “. . “We believe a win could lead to further strength for the stock on Robotaxi Day, and serves as a reminder that concerns about fundamentals have dissipated, at least for now.”
Tesla bull Dan Ives of Wedbush expects that not only will sales improve in the third quarter, but profitability may also improve after a sharp decline over the past year.
“More importantly, we believe price cuts are now mostly in the rearview mirror and should eliminate the excess margin from the Tesla story that has plagued the name over the past year,” Ives wrote in a note last week. “We believe gross margins should finally start to bounce back from these levels with the third quarter a big step forward.”
Interestingly, analysts also started modeling Cybertruck sales, which is what actually happened production Sales data starts to rise.
Standard & Poor’s Global Mobility Data showed that Tesla has sold more than 5,000 Cyber trucks In July, the last month for which the company collected data, year-to-date sales were 17,722.
Deutsche Bank expects sales of the Cybertruck, which is available for sale in the United States only, to reach 13,500 vehicles in the third quarter.
While this number represents only 3% of total sales, it is rising and, at the margin, could represent the difference between a sales win or a miss in Tesla’s overall deliverables.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow it twitter And on Instagram.
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