Record deliveries in Q2 2019 could enable Tesla to note profits again.
According to the recent Elon Musk email to all employees, the current quarter could be a record one in terms of the number of Tesla cars delivered.
Elon wrote that there is a chance to exceed the 90,700 delivered in Q4 2018 (the last quarter of full $7,500 federal tax credit and before the Tesla Model 3 expansion outside of North America), but production of 1,000 Tesla Model 3 per day will be required in June, compared to an average of about 900/day during the first part of the quarter.
Because it’s not easy to reach a new milestone of a sustainable 1,000 per day, we imagine how the sales will look like if the record will be achieved at a minimum level of some 91,000 deliveries in Q2 2019. As you can see, sales are more than two times higher than a year earlier and not far from the over 101,000 delivered in all previous second-quarters since 2013.
Tesla Model 3
However, Q2 could be the last quarter of such a high pace of growth from Tesla, because Q3 and Q4 2018 already raised the bar high, and Q3 brings another step of in the federal tax credit phase-out to $1,875.
Anyway, Tesla is approaching six-digit quarterly sales which could be the entry level for sustained growth, without high losses that we saw in Q1 2019 (Q3 and Q4 2018 deliveries were high enough for small profits).