Only 10 months after breaking ground on its ‘Gigafactory’ in Shanghai, which is the first completely foreign-owned car plant in the country, Tesla unveiled its first China-made electric vehicles for purchase Monday. Despite hitting this milestone, the company’s stock sunk on speculation the company will miss 2019 delivery expectations when Q4 numbers are released.
The first Model 3s off the line for customers went to 15 employees who received them during a ceremony Monday. Tesla ($TSLA) posted photos of the “happy” gathering on the social media site Weibo. Trial production began in October 2019. Tesla has 36 retail stores and 300 charging stations in China.
Only a day before the Shanghai factory celebrated the new Teslas, Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne told clients that he expects Tesla to announce it delivered fewer than expected electric vehicles this year. While Cowan raised the fourth quarter delivery estimate to 101,000 from 95,000, which would put 2019 delivery total at 356,000 vehicles, that number is still “slightly missing” the guidance range of 360,000-400,000 vehicles. Osborne said he had raised Q4 estimates due to strength in the Netherlands and China ahead of subsidy changes.
A note to clients also said, “We continue to see risks to the company’s growth story,” to an expected increase in competition.
Tesla’s stock dropped almost 5 percent Monday, which is its biggest drop in a month, after Cowen’s note became public.
While Tesla’s growth skyrocketed in 2019, it has also raised concerns for investors. The company has faced SEC investigations into founder Elon Musk’s tweets and manufacturing issues for the Model 3..
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
