Barclays says Tesla (TSLA, Financial) expected fourth-quarter 2024 delivery numbers are high but likely won't cause much of a stir in the stock. Q4 deliveries are expected to reach roughly 515,000 units versus the consensus of 511,000 and a 6% year-over-year increase.
While these numbers are impressive, Barclays pointed out that Tesla's bigger-picture strategy reduces their significance. Investors are less driven by short-term delivery metrics, as Tesla's 2019 success mostly comes from longer-term prospects in self-driving cars and artificial intelligence (AI), noted the bank.
Barclays expects Tesla's 2024 sales to be in line with the previous year's 1.81 million units, behind Tesla's own growth guidance. Yet Barclays downplayed any potential volume miss as the company moved to downplay the impact of any negative news, with shares in Tesla at the mercy of advancements in AI and future autonomous vehicles (AV), such as the imminent “Unsupervised FSD” launch in 2025.
Also, future growth is seen as linked to the planned rollout of Tesla's low-cost model, due in the first half of 2025. Any short-term concerns about Q4 performance will be tempered by analysts' confidence in 2025 delivery projections. Therefore, for Barclays, any minimal variation in stock following Q4 deliveries is not expected to shift the company's long-term path.
