– Tesla Inc beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter vehicle deliveries on Thursday even as the electric-car maker main factory in Fremont was shut down due to the coronavirus-related curbs, sending its shares up 9%.
The delivery numbers come a day after Tesla became the highest-valued automaker, surpassing the market capitalization of former front-runner Toyota Motors Corp.
Tesla delivered 90,650 vehicles during the quarter, above estimates of 74,130 vehicles, according to Refinitiv data. It delivered 80,050 units of its new Model Y sport utility vehicle and Model 3 for the quarter.
Earlier this week, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk in an internal email called on employees to work hard to allow Tesla to break even in the quarter despite the coronavirus crisis.
“While our main factory in Fremont was shut down for much of the quarter, we have successfully ramped production back to prior levels,” the automaker said in a statement.
During the period from April to June, most of United States was under government imposed stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of the virus, which impacted production and caused a plunge in auto sales.
The lockdown resulted in shut down of production at Tesla’s only U.S. vehicle factory in California for more than six weeks from the end of March to early May.