Tesla Inc. fell short of its end-of-year growth target for 2022, despite the electric-vehicle (EV) maker delivering stronger-than-expected metrics in the fourth quarter.
Last year proved challenging for the San Francisco-based EV manufacturer and its billionaire CEO, Elon Musk. Tesla reportedly delivered 1.31 million EVS in 2022, just shy of the 1.4 million vehicles the company needed to sell to meet its target goal.
Consensus estimates by Wall Street placed year-end deliveries at 1.34 million, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal and data backed by FactSet Research Systems Inc.
While Tesla’s deliveries were up roughly 40% in 2021, the company missed its 2022 delivery target of an increase of 50%, according to year-end projections by Musk. To meet the company’s delivery target, Tesla would have needed to deliver an additional 900,000 EVs to customers before the end of the year.
Even though Tesla could not meet its 2022 goal, the automaker continued to generate considerable demand for its different models. Growing competition in the EV sector did little to hamper demand for Tesla vehicles. As of Q3 2022, Tesla EVs commanded 61% of the sector’s total market share, according to S&P Global Mobility.
Tesla reportedly delivered a combined 1.25 million Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossover vehicles in 2022.
As far as the company’s Model S sedans and Model X sport-utility vehicles go, the company said it delivered a combined 66,705 vehicles.
Additionally, Tesla was also able to launch its first EV semitrailer truck, which was successfully delivered to PepsiCo in December, five years after Musk announced the project.
Musk said that manufacturing challenges would likely persist through 2023, given current macroeconomic conditions and the United States’ high-interest rate environment. He also noted that internal changes to how Tesla produces cars and distributes them could also impact the current-year outlook.
Over the course of 2022, the company managed to erase roughly $675 billion in market capitalization, marking Tesla’s worst-performing year since going public in 2010.
From January to December, Tesla’s annual share price (NASDAQ: TSLA) plummeted from a 52-week high of $402.67 to a low of $104.64, an almost 75% drop in share value.
Musk’s personal income was not afforded much reprieve from last year’s stock market onslaught. The damaging 75% year-over-year drop in Tesla’s share price gave rise to a more than 50% cut to Musk’s net worth in 2022. It fell from $267 billion to $130 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In terms of Tesla’s outlook for 2023, Musk remains optimistic about the fundamentals and the growth potential.
“Long-term fundamentals are extremely strong. Short-term market madness is unpredictable,” Musk tweeted two days before the new year.
