[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]
Tesla beats forecasts with 480,126 Q2 deliveries
Company gains ground in a slower-growing global market for plug-in cars
Key Takeaways:
- Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles worldwide in Q2, exceeding Bloomberg’s average estimate of 396,466.
- Deliveries rose 25% from a year earlier, when Tesla faced consumer backlash against CEO Elon Musk.
- Tesla plans to spend more than $25 billion this year as Musk expands factory operations.
Tesla Inc.’s vehicle sales beat Wall Street’s modest expectations by a wide margin, gaining ground in a slower-growing global market for plug-in cars.
The company delivered 480,126 vehicles worldwide in the second quarter. The figure, announced in a July 2 statement, exceeded the average estimate compiled by Bloomberg of 396,466 vehicles.
Deliveries rose 25% from a year earlier, when Tesla faced widespread consumer backlash against CEO Elon Musk’s polarizing work for the Trump administration.
While sales are improving, many Musk watchers are looking past Tesla’s core electric vehicle business and toward the CEO’s vision of turning artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics into major revenue generators in the future. They’re also increasingly anticipating Musk potentially opting to merge the company with SpaceX, which staged a record initial public offering last month.
Maintaining a brisker pace of electric vehicle sales is critical for Tesla as it takes a more spendthrift approach to capital expenditures. The company plans to shell out more than $25 billion this year, roughly three times last year’s outlay, as Musk expands factory operations for production of Optimus humanoid robots and autonomous Cybercabs, among other initiatives.
Tesla shares jumped as much as 3% before regular trading in New York. The stock has declined more than 5% this year through July 1’s close, trailing the more than 9% advance in the S&P 500 Index.
