Tesla (TSLA) shares moved lower Tuesday after the carmaker posted a rare slump in quarterly deliveries and reports suggest two of its four key factories will go dark for two weeks over the month of July.
Supply chain disruptions, chip shortages and a 22-day shutdown at its gigafactory in Shanghai pulled second quarter deliveries down 17.7% from the first quarter, to a weaker-than-expected 254,695 new units, Tesla said Saturday.
Tesla delivered 238,533 units of its Model 3 and Model &, as well as 16,162 units of its Model S and Model X, the report indicated.
Production fell to 258,580 vehicles, from the 305,407 made in the first quarter and the 305,840 tally recorded over the final three months of last year, Tesla said, but plans to idle factories in Shanghai and Berlin for upgrade work will test the clean-energy carmaker's ability to ramp-up output over the September quarter.
Tesla shares were marked 3.56% lower in early Tuesday trading to change hands at $656.33 each, a move that would extend the stock's year-to-date decline to around 46%.
Tesla also said it will publish its second quarter earnings on Wednesday July 20, with analysts looking for a bottom line of $1.89 per share on revenues of $17.35 billion.
A pullback in deliveries won't be the only factor in focus when Tesla publishes its June quarter earnings after the close of trading, as investors count the cost of both China's Covid lockdown on its overall production and the impact of Elon Musk's pursuit of a $44 billion takeover of social media group Twitter (TWTR).
Tesla shares have fallen around 41.1% since Musk made his 9.1% stake in Twitter public on April 4 as investors discounted both Musk's margin loans on the purchase, his sale of around $9 billion in Tesla shares and the billionaire's growing leadership portfolio, which includes space exploration group SpaceX, The Boring Company construction company and neurotechnology specialists Neuralink Corp.
The group is also facing a significant writedown on its $1.5 billion holding in bitcoin, which slumped more than 56% over the three months ending in June.
Last month, Tesla boosted the cost of its long-range Model Y by around 5%, to $65,990, while the base cost for the Model 3 long range sedan rose $2,000 to $57,990. Model S prices were increased by $5,000 to $104,990. The changes mark the second price increase of this year and the third since last October.
Raw materials prices, as well as labor costs linked to overall production cycles, have risen steadily over the past year, while Nickel prices -- a crucial component in EV battery making -- have risen around 30% so far this year to around $25,500 per ton on the London Metals Exchange, while battery-grade lithium carbonate prices are up around 60% from early 2021 levels.
