Tesla stated Friday it delivered a quarterly record of 112,000 cars in the final three months of 2019, which paved the way for the electric automaker to surpass CEO Elon Musk’s sales targets for all of the last year.
With its fourth-quarter figures, Tesla finished 2019 with 367,500 deliveries of its Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicles. Previously in the year, Musk said he expected the automaker to deliver at least 360,000 cars for the year. Deliveries is a term the automaker uses for vehicle sales, and the company considers a sale done when a car has been delivered and a buyer gets the car.
Tesla stated its deliveries increased 50% from its 2018 results.
Gene Munster, managing director of Loup Ventures, stated the deliveries were another measurable step forward for the automaker, and gives credibility to the belief that the electric car theme is present and is opening up a vast addressable market of possible customers.
Investors, who drove up Tesla’s shares by over 25% last year, showed their admiration for Tesla’s delivery report Friday, and sent the company’s stock price up by nearly 3%, to a record-high close of $443.01.
Tesla Model 3 remained Tesla’s most significant vehicle by a large margin. Tesla stated it delivered 92,550 Model 3s throughout the fourth-quarter. A combined 19,450 deliveries of its Model S and Model X cars have been reported as well.
“Deliveries were well ahead of (Wall) Street expectations,” stated Colin Rusch, an expert with Oppenheimer & Co, adding that the combination of deliveries also looked strong. Wall Street experts had estimated that the automaker would deliver 87,900 Model 3 cars, and a combined 19,100 Model S and Model X vehicles.
Tesla stated it produced 104,891 cars throughout the quarter, including 1,000 cars from its Gigafactory in Shanghai that the company stated are ready to be sold. Tesla added that it has showed it can produce over 3,000 cars a week at the Shanghai facility. The company delivered the first Shanghai-built Model 3 cars on December 30.
