China EV war: Tesla demand fuels ‘home run’ quarter as NIO, Xpeng step up rivalry with five-fold surge in deliveries

Name: Tesla starts delivery of made-in-China cars
Uploaded: 2021-04-05T02:03:22.000Z
Duration: 1 min 20 s
Description: Tesla starts delivery of made-in-China cars

Tesla delivered 184,800 cars worldwide in the first quarter, beating market estimate; firm does not break down sales by country or geography

Challengers NIO and Xpeng both recorded a five-fold surge in deliveries as Chinese consumers embraced EVs amid state-driven incentives

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Bloomberg

Published: 10:03am, 5 Apr 2021Updated: 10:03am, 5 Apr 2021

Tesla’s market-smashing deliveries of electric vehicles (EVs) in the first quarter suggest Chief Executive Elon Musk’s bet on growth in China and Europe is starting to pay off.

The results marked a strong start to a year in which Musk is counting on global operations to help scale-up production and sales. Tesla delivered 184,800 cars worldwide in the first quarter, exceeding the 169,850 average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. It represents an increase of about 4,000 vehicles over the preceding quarter.

The latest quarter was “a massive home run in the eyes of the bulls,” Dan Ives at Wedbush wrote in a research note Friday. “We believe China and Europe were particularly robust this quarter as the trajectory now puts Musk & Co to exceed 850k for the year, which is well ahead of whisper expectations.”

01:20

Tesla starts delivery of made-in-China cars

Musk is pushing into China, the world’s largest automotive market including for EVs, to gain a foothold amid competition from local EV start-ups as well as Volkswagen. Auto sales are forecast to rise in the Asian nation this year for the first time since 2017. The government in March said it will help boost the number of EV charging stations and battery-swapping facilities.

Tesla is not the only carmaker to report robust delivery last quarter. Its main Chinese rivals NIO and Xpeng both recorded a five-fold surge in sales in the first quarter of 20,060 and 13,340 units respectively, as smart electric vehicles increasingly hit the mark with mainland motorists.

Tesla’s volume stands apart from most other carmakers, who mainly are showing declines in part because of electronic-chip constraints, analysts at Jefferies said in a research note. “Shares should respond well to the Q1 delivery data.”

00:47

Vehicle number 10,000 rolls off the assembly line for Chinese electric carmaker XPeng

After a remarkable run in 2020 that saw its stock price surge by more than 700 per cent, Tesla’s shares fell roughly 6 per cent this year through April 1.

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