Tesla reported an increase in sales for the first time this year, although its year-to-date sales still trail the same period of 2023.
The company delivered nearly 463,000 vehicles worldwide in the third quarter, up six per cent from the year ago sales figure and up four per cent from the total delivered in the second quarter of this year.
Tesla’s history of steady year-over-year sales gains, and its forecast of continued gains, is one of the reason that its stock has the greatest market value of any automaker in the world by a large margin. But the company is facing increased competition from established automakers who are offering more electric vehicle models of their own.
The first and second quarters of this year saw Tesla reports drops in sales of nine per cent and five per cent, respectively, the first time in the company’s history that it reported two consecutive quarters of declining sales. Even with the increased sales reported Wednesday, it’s year-to-to-date deliveries of 1.3 million vehicles is down two per cent from a year ago.
General Motors reported Tuesday that its US EV sales climbed 60 per cent compared to a year ago and 46 per cent compared to the second quarter. But it still had only a fraction of Tesla’s sales with US EV sales coming in at 32,000 vehicles. Tesla doesn’t break out the sales by market so it’s precise US sales are not known.
Tesla is also facing increased competition from Chinese automakers’ EV offerings, especially in Europe. Tesla stayed ahead of Chinese automaker BYD, which briefly passed Tesla in worldwide EV sales last year. BYD reported global third quarter battery electric sales of 313,000, and year-to-date sales of 1.2 million EVs. But its year-to-date total is up nearly 12 per cent, unlike the decline at Tesla.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were down four per cent at the market open, taking shares back to approximately were they were at the start of the year.
