Tesla Set For Record Quarter As China Helps Fuel EV charge

China’s increasing appetite for electric vehicles could help make this quarter EV maker Tesla’s best one ever for deliveries.

Wall Street analysts shared their upbeat estimates for the US firm’s quarterly vehicle deliveries on Tuesday, with one research group predicting it will be the best quarter for the company so far – even as the auto sector wrestles with an unprecedented shortage of parts.

And China is playing a key role in the firm’s success – on both the sales and production fronts. Its Shanghai plant is likely to have exported about 55,000 vehicles in July-August, up from roughly 30,000 in the second quarter, Credit Suisse’s Levy said.

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The electric-car maker had flagged an unusually high end-of-quarter wave of deliveries in a staff memo earlier this month, when Chief Executive Elon Musk asked employees to “go super hardcore” to make up for production challenges early in the third quarter.

Analysts at Piper Sandler and RBC raised their estimates to about 233,000 vehicle deliveries for the third quarter ending September 30, while Credit Suisse’s estimate was 225,000-230,000.

The figures represent a 65%-67% jump from a year earlier. As of Monday, analysts on average expected 222,700 Tesla vehicle deliveries for the third quarter, according to market data provider Visible Alpha data.

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Analysts have also said the impact of the global semiconductor shortage, which has crippled many automakers around the world, may have been smaller on Tesla.

The third quarter will likely be Tesla’s “strongest” ever, Piper Sandler’s Alexander Potter said, noting increasing adoption of electric vehicles in Europe and China and Tesla’s rising market share.

Potter also raised his forecast for annual deliveries to 894,000 from 846,000. That would nearly double last year’s deliveries of 499,550.

Sean O’Meara and Reuters

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Sean O'Meara

Sean O'Meara is an Editor at Asia Financial. He has been a newspaper man for more than 30 years, working at local, regional and national titles in the UK as a writer, sub-editor, page designer and print editor. A football, cricket and rugby fan, he has a particular interest in sports finance.