Tesla Shares Jump on Q1 Deliveries

Electric vehicle giant Tesla announced this week that it had delivered 88,400 vehicles in the first quarter, close enough to what Wall Street had been expecting.

As a result, shares were flying in Thursday’s extended session. Shares jumped over 17% in after-hours trading when they had been down 5.6% in the regular session.

According to Tesla, the deliveries were the comppny’s “best ever” first quarter and a number only a tad below Wall Street expectations.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet on average expected the company to deliver 89,000 vehicles in the first quarter. This includes 75,700 Model 3 mass-market sedans.

Tesla reported that the production of the next vehicle in its lineup, the Model Y compact SUV, started in January and the first vehicles were delivered last month, “Significantly ahead of schedule.”

RBC Capital analyst Joseph Spak said in a note after the release that the company had cleared a low bar. Spak had expected first-quarter sales around 86,500 vehicles.

“Overall, we don’t believe this release should change any investor view,” he said. Tesla’s first-quarter earnings are expected for later this month or in early May. Key items then “will be cash flow and color on when production could start again, as well as indication of what is happening to orders and demand,” Spak said.

Tesla had reported fourth-quarter deliveries that met Wall Street expectations in January.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and have not been compensated for this article.