The fourth quarter of 2022 saw the delivery of 405,278 vehicles, Tesla reported recently. The automaker delivered a record number of vehicles, but it fell short of Wall Street’s expectations of between 420,000 and 425,000.
In addition, the electric vehicle manufacturer reported a total of 439,701 vehicles produced in the fourth quarter. With this, Tesla will have delivered 1.31 million units annually and produced 1.37 million units by 2022.
Despite Tesla’s impressive delivery growth of 40%, the company also missed its guidance for the year, which predicted a 50% increase in production and deliveries. To meet that goal, the automaker needed to sell 495,760 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
Tesla’s deliveries for the fourth quarter are up from 343,830 in the third quarter. Tesla may have benefited from the automaker’s last-minute discounts toward the quarter’s end.
Tesla slashed $3,250 off the price of Model 3 and Model Ys delivered in the United States in December, partially in response to the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV tax credits, which would provide Tesla buyers with rebates of up to $7,500. Last week, Tesla slashed $7,500 off the price of Model 3 and Model Ys. Last quarter, Tesla also offered discounts in China and Mexico, but it’s not yet clear how those price drops would have affected the automaker’s margins.
Although Tesla has stated that production at its two new factories, Austin and Berlin, has increased in recent months, the company’s production and delivery report does not disclose numbers by region. After experiencing production delays as a result of COVID-19 control measures, the business has also increased production at its Fremont and Shanghai facilities.
Since January, the share price of the company has dropped by 65%. Because the stock market is closed today, we won’t know, if at all, how the delivery news has affected the share price until tomorrow.