It’s the first trading day of the New Year, and Tesla Motors stock is tanking. Shares declined by as much as 7.48% to $222.05 per share in afternoon trades after the automaker released the shipment number for the full year and the fourth quarter. It did manage to meet the guidance of between 50,000 and 52,000 vehicles, but just barely.
Tesla shipped 50,580 vehicles in 2015
Tesla originally said it would ship between 50,000 and 55,000 vehicles during 2015 but later revised that outlook down to a range of 50,000 to 52,000. Clearly Wall Street was disappointed when the automaker said that it shipped 50,580 vehicles in all of 2015 as its stock witnessed its biggest one-day fall since Aug. 6. Investors have had high expectations for the EV manufacturer after CEO Elon Musk demonstrated strong execution that once smashed expectations.
More recently, however, like over the last year or two, investors have been disappointed time and time again as results have come out in line with or just slightly higher than guidance rather than well ahead of expectations. Bulls like analyst Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities have only added to the hurt by setting Tesla up for a fall with reports like this one in which he said the automaker might beat its shipment guidance.
Tesla had guided for between 17,000 and 19,000 vehicles for the fourth quarter, and it delivered 17,400 vehicles during the quarter. Of that number, 208 of the deliveries were Model X SUVs. CEO Elon Musk has admitted that they have been encountering production issues with the vehicle. However, in the announcement about the delivery numbers, the automaker said the number of Model X deliveries was in line with their expectations for the early stages of ramping production of the SUV.
A spokesperson said the production ramp “has been increasing exponentially” and that Tesla was on track to produce 238 Model X crossovers a week as of the last week of the year.
Tesla investigates Supercharger station fire
The rather low delivery number isn’t the only bit of bad news Tesla is dealing with right now though. According to MarketWatch, the automaker is investing a fire on New Year’s Day at a Supercharger station that burned a Model S to the ground, so to speak. The fire happened in Norway, and a Tesla spokesperson said no one is hurt and that they are investigating to find out what caused the fire.
A Norwegian TV station reports that a Model S owner plugged in the sedan at a Supercharger station on New Year’s Day and then walked away. Not long after plugging it in, the car reportedly caught fire. Norway is Tesla’s largest market in Europe as the nation offers a large swathe of subsidies and other benefits like ferry crossings and toll-free roads to owners of electric vehicles.
This isn’t the first time a serious fire damaged Wall Street’s view of Tesla. In late 2013 and early 2014, the automaker dealt with a few other fires, although the circumstances of those fires were different, usually involving accidents. The automaker quickly dealt with the main cause of fires caused by accidents through software adjustments.
