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Electric vehicle stocks went into reverse in early trading on Tuesday after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) missed already beaten-down estimates with its Q1 production and deliveries report.
The electric vehicle giant announced on Tuesday that it delivered 386,810 vehicles in Q1 and produced 433,371 vehicles. The deliveries tally missed the consensus estimate that had already been slashed significantly over the last three weeks. Model 3/Y production was 412,376 units vs. 439,194 consensus. By comparison, Tesla delivered a total of 484,507 vehicles in Q4 and delivered 422,875 a year ago in Q1.
On Wall Street, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives did not pull any punches in characterizing the quarter. "While we were anticipating a bad 1Q, this was an unmitigated disaster 1Q that is hard to explain away," he noted.
Ives unleashed: "We view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story for Musk to either turn this around and reverse the black eye 1Q performance. Otherwise, some darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative. While we remain bullish on the long term story given the prospects for growth and EV/FSD over the coming quarters, this was a train wreck into a brick wall quarter for Musk & Co. with our estimate that China was down at least 3% YoY."
Barclays also created some ripples in the EV sector after downgrading Nio (NIO) to an Underweight rating due to weak sales trends. "With limited new product launches in the pipeline planned for the rest of 2024, we see significant risks for NIO's ability to meet consensus estimates for the reminder of the year," warned analyst Jiong Shao. Barclays cut revenue estimates on Nio (NIO) for Q1, 2024, and 2025.
Notable decliners included sensitive small-cap stocks such as Microvast (MVST) -36.0%, Canoo (GOEV) -33.6%, Allego (ALLG) -20.9%, and Nikola (NKLA) -12.2%. Electric vehicle makers Polestar Automotive (PSNY) -4.2%, Nio (NIO) -3.8%, Workhorse Group (WKHS) -3.8%, XPeng (XPEV) -3.3%, Lucid Group (LCID) -3.3%, and VinFast Auto (VFS) -1.7% all were down as well. EV-related stocks such as Hyzon Motors (HYZN) -8.3%, Luminar Technologies (LAZR) -8.1%, Hyliion Holdings (HYLN) -4.8%, and QuantumScape (QS) -3.5% also were in negative territory.
Rivian Automotive (RIVN) dropped 4.6%, despite backing its full-year deliveries guidance earlier in the morning.
Toyota (TM), Ford Motor (F), and General Motors (GM) were all down roughly 1% as Tesla's (TSLA) deliveries report created some ripples of demand worries for the legacy players as well.
Tesla (TSLA) opened with a 5.66% swing lower to $165.31 as it pared just a bit of its premarket drop.