It should be instructive for Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk to see how the company’s investors react to good news from the company absent any of his tweets and comments about how the company is performing. Tesla reported Friday morning that the automaker built 104,891 vehicles in the fourth quarter and delivered 112,000, both record numbers for the electric automaker. Analysts had been expecting deliveries of 106,000 vehicles.
For the full year, Tesla delivered 367,500 vehicles, just ahead of the low-end of its announced range of 360,000 to 400,000 deliveries. That total is 50% higher than the company’s 2018 delivery mark.
A total of 92,550 Model 3 sedans were delivered in the quarter, along with a combined total of 19,450 Model S sedans and Model X sport utility vehicles.
In a comment on the company’s new Shanghai Gigafactory, Tesla noted it had produced “just under 1,000 salable” Model 3 sedans and “demonstrated production run-rate capability of greater than 3,000 units per week.” If that rate can be realized, Tesla will be building more cars in Shanghai in a single month than its erstwhile competitor Nio is expected to build in the fourth quarter.
When Tesla failed to reach Musk’s long-shot prediction of 100,000 vehicles delivered in the third quarter, Gene Munster and Will Thompson at Loup Ventures commented, “[H]itting even the low end of 2019 guidance would be a big win for a company that struggles to properly set expectations.” The company hit that target, and Musk’s reticence has helped the fourth-quarter report drive the stock to another all-time high of $451.50.
Tesla stock has been on a tear since early November, rising nearly 37% from around $330 to Friday’s new high. The stock’s 52-week low is $176.99, and the consensus price target was $303.66.
Is this just more fanboy-ism? There’s certainly some of that but Tesla has a huge head start on its traditional competitors like GM, Ford, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. With a Chinese factory now operating and capable of churning out 12,000 vehicles a month, Tesla’s lead in delivering electric vehicles will grow as it begins work on a fourth Gigafactory in Germany. The music will stop one day, but for now, the band plays on.
Shares traded at $449.54 at last look, up about 4.5% for the day.
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