Parts shortages and pandemic-related production shutdowns at Tesla’s plant in Shanghai caused a big drop in the electric car maker’s latest global vehicle deliveries, according to figures released on Saturday.The US automaker said it had delivered 254,000 vehicles in the second quarter. Though up 27 per cent from a year before, the Chinese shutdowns brought its first sequential quarterly drop in more than two years.
The delivery figure was well below the 350,000 that Wall Street had been expecting at the beginning of the quarter, though analysts started scaling back their forecasts in late April after chief executive Elon Musk warned that the figure was likely to be roughly level with the 310,000 of the first quarter.
The forecasts have fallen again in recent days as Wall Street has sought to anticipate the final impact of Chinese shutdowns, which continued sporadically throughout the quarter. The Shanghai plant produced around half of the company’s output last year. Tesla has been scrambling since the end of March to boost production at its main US plant in Fremont to make up some of the shortfall.