Tesla on Tuesday posted a decline in quarterly deliveries for the first time in nearly four years and missed Wall Street estimates, a performance some described as “ugly” as price cuts failed to stir demand in a highly competitive market.
Shares of the Elon Musk-led company were down 5.2% at $166.08 on Tuesday afternoon, losing about $30 billion in market value. The shares have fallen about 33% so far this year.

After years of rapid sales growth that helped turn Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker, the company is bracing for a slowdown in 2024.

The EV maker has been slow to refresh its aging models as high interest rates have sapped consumer appetite for big-ticket items and rivals in China, the world’s largest auto market, are rolling out cheaper models.

Tesla’s deliveries declined by 8.5% in the first quarter to 386,810 vehicles from a year ago and the company produced 433,371 vehicles during the period. Wall Street had expected Tesla to deliver 454,200 vehicles, according to the average projection of 18 analysts polled by Visible Alpha.

The last time the automaker posted a sales fall was in the second quarter of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced Tesla to shut down production.

Tesla attributed the drop in volumes partly to efforts to prepare its Fremont, California, factory to handle increased production of the updated Model 3 and to shutdowns at its Berlin plant due to the impact of the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack.

But Tesla produced 46,000 more vehicles than it sold in the first quarter, signaling softer demand, analysts said.

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