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Tesla underwhelms Wall St with hazy 2021 delivery outlook, profit miss
Tesla Inc’s fourth-quarter profit fell short of Wall Street expectations on Wednesday and the company failed to provide a clear target for 2021 vehicle deliveries, sending shares down 5% in extended trade.
Washington: Tesla Inc’s fourth-quarter profit fell short of Wall Street expectations on Wednesday and the company failed to provide a clear target for 2021 vehicle deliveries, sending shares down 5% in extended trade.
The disappointing results come after shares of the electric carmaker led by CEO Elon Musk surged nearly 700% over the past 12 months, a valuation rooted in expectations that Tesla will quickly and profitably expand.
Investors had hoped for a significant increase over the company’s 2020 delivery goal of half a million vehicles, but Tesla provided only a vague outlook and did not state a concrete delivery goal.
“Over a multi-year horizon, we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries. In some years we may grow faster, which we expect to be the case in 2021,” Tesla said in a statement
The fuzzy guidance also comes after Musk fanned hopes during an October earnings call. Asked by an analyst whether Tesla aimed to deliver 840,000 to 1 million vehicles in 2021, based on its factories’ current maximum capacity, Musk responded the target was “in that vicinity,” while another Tesla executive said the company would provide guidance next quarter.
Tesla’s chief financial officer, Zachary Kirkhorn, said on Wednesday the company was “working extremely hard” to manage through a global shortage of semiconductors that has vexed the auto industry, but did not elaborate.
Tesla delivered 180,570 vehicles during the fourth quarter, a quarterly record, even though it narrowly missed its ambitious 2020 goal of half a million deliveries.
“After Tesla’s unprecedented run in 2020, investors were anticipating a substantial earnings beat and another big target for car deliveries in 2021,” said Haris Anwar, senior analyst at Investing.com.
Investors and analysts during an earnings call were keen to learn more about Tesla’s pace of growth, including when it would book more revenue for its automated driving features, but they received few concrete answers.
Tesla allows customers to purchase an $8,000 software upgrade it calls “Full Self Driving,” but has not yet booked a large chunk of that revenue as the feature has yet to be widely released to consumers.(Reuters)