Despite its claims of AI superiority, Tesla struggles to accurately forecast its sales figures. A recent optimistic outlook on sales performance, coupled with a disappointing robotaxi unveiling, highlights the company's ongoing challenges in balancing hype with delivery.
The strange thing about Tesla ’s latest results is that a company touting leadership in artificial intelligence and self-driving cars struggles to predict where its own sales will be in a couple of months. In late October, Tesla surprised markets by announcing it expected a “slight increase” in annual vehicle sales in 2024, implying the company would move around 515,000 in the fourth quarter.
Wall Street analysts, who had been slashing their forecasts for fourth-quarter sales for the best part of a year, duly reversed course and the consensus estimate jumped to almost that number.Elon Musk said after the release of the results that he expects Tesla to one day be the most valuable company in the world.Companies do miss guidance, of course. But in this case, Tesla had pointedly challenged the prevailing view on the street about one of the easiest figures for any enterprise to predict, let alone one that has rebranded itself as an AI giant. Tesla’s resetting of expectations in October, with chief executive Elon Musk doubling down by also teasing 20 per cent -30 per cent growth in vehicle sales in 2025, came at a helpful time. Tesla’s robotaxi unveiling earlier that month was a flop, continuing a long-running tradition of overpromising and under-delivering when it comes to autonomous driving.There was suddenly a buoyant outlook for EVs: Tesla’s stock jumped by 22 per cent the next day, more than erasing the losses after the robotaxi disappointment. Given the company’s unanticipated optimism didn’t pan out, I guess Tesla’s computing chops, formidable as they doubtlessly are, still need some honing. Tesla’s stock has, of course, soared to even greater heights since then, hitting an all-time peak valuation of $US1.54 trillion ($2.48 trillion) last month. That owes more to the election of Musk’s newest pal, President-elect Donald Trump, and a sense that proximity to power will somehow boost Tesla’s fortune
TESLA SALES FORECAST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AUTOMOTIVE STOCK MARKET
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