Tesla electric car shares of the maker fell 29% in the first three months of the year, marking the worst quarter for the company’s stock since the end of 2022 and the third worst quarter since Tesla went public in 2010. At the same time, Tesla’s capitalization decreased by $200 billion. The company had the worst performance of any constituent of the S&P 500 index.
Tesla is poised to report first-quarter vehicle production and shipments in the coming days, and even bulls expect sluggish results despite price cuts and customer incentives that continued throughout the quarter. As of Thursday, the last trading day of the quarter, analysts were expecting about 457,000 shipped during the period, according to estimates from 11 analysts compiled by FactSet. That represents an 8 percent increase from 422,875 units a year earlier. Estimates for the quarter ranged from 414,000 to 511,000 vehicles.
Experts attribute the company’s financial problems to both a general decline in demand in the electric car market and internal difficulties. Although Tesla reduced the cost of Model 3 and Model Y in China at the beginning of the year, it did not bring the expected result: the volume of deliveries in February decreased by 19%, and in March the decline reached 35% compared to the previous year.
In addition, now Xiaomi comes into play, which sells its car for $4,000 cheaper than the Tesla Model 3. This will also hit Tesla, which analysts are sure of.
