Tesla Stock Soars After Topping 88k Deliveries in Q1 – But Analysts Still See Headwinds

The Tesla stock price rallied close to 20% in post-market trading after reporting stronger than expected deliveries for the first quarter despite massive disruptions related to the epidemic.

Its first-quarter deliveries surged to 88,400 compared to the consensus estimate for 79,900 deliveries. Total production in the first quarter was around 102,000 vehicles.

The electric vehicle maker started Model Y production in January and deliveries began in March, significantly ahead of schedule.

The Tesla stock price is currently trading around the $450 level after hitting lows of $350 a share in March on coronavirus related impacts. However, the Tesla stock price is still considerably down from an all-time high of $950 that it had hit in February this year.

Despite this strong first-quarter performance, market analysts are still showing concerns over the second and third quarter numbers. However, they don’t see any immediate liquidity threat for the world’s largest electric vehicle maker.

Bernstein is among those firms that believe Tesla has enough cash to survive the impact of the pandemic. Its analyst, Toni Sacconaghi, expects Tesla to miss its full-year targets and anticipates revenue to drop by around 20% this year.

“The company’s pain is likely to extend through the second and third quarters as the economic weakness wrought by the coronavirus pandemic could dwarf anything seen during the Great Recession,” he warns.

Tesla has announced the temporary closure of the majority of its production facilities in the wake of the pandemic. The company also announced it would cut 75% of its staff at its Nevada Gigafactory. The facility is responsible for producing electric motors and battery packs.

TrueCar subsidiary ALS expects car sales to stand in the range of 11.2M this year due to ongoing social distancing measures, a prolonged economic downturn, limited out-of-home activity through summer, and increased unemployment throughout 2020.

Car sales in the United States stood around 17.1M last year.