Tesla Stock Tumbles After Disappointing Q3 Deliveries

Having set expectation high again this quarter, with Musk telling employees in a recent email that the company “has a shot” at delivering 100,000 cars – which would have been a new record, the actual deliveries disappointed.

Consensus was for the carmaker to deliver 99,000 vehicles – they missed, delivering around 97,000 vehicles.

This should not be a total surprise, as we noted earlier, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas called the Model S “old”, the Model X “overly engineered” and the Model 3 “trapped in a narrow sedan segment.”

And investors are not happy as the shares are down 5% after hours…

And then there’s this…

Quarterly reminder that Tesla likely has over 19,000 cars that remain unsold. Some used internally, but a lot still stacking up in lots around the world. $TSLAQ $TSLA pic.twitter.com/8BZoS86Rgr

— Paul Huettner, CFA (@Paul_M_Huettner) October 2, 2019

The company carefully CYA’d with the following comment:

“Our delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct. Final numbers could vary by up to 0.5% or more.

Tesla vehicle deliveries represent only one measure of the company’s financial performance and should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly financial results, which depend on a variety of factors, including the cost of sales, foreign exchange movements and mix of directly leased vehicles.”

But, if you’re banking on the company’s autonomous timeline to save the stock, Morgan Stanley’s Jonas simply lays down his arms and gives up:

“We think that both bulls and bears alike believe that Tesla’s autonomy timeline is unrealistic,” he says.

We couldn’t agree with you more, Adam.