Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA, ETR:TL0) shares fell almost 6% in early trading on Tuesday after the firm missed expectations and reported lower first-quarter sales for the first time in four years.
Some 386,800 cars were delivered over the three months to March, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle giant reported, down more than 8% on the same period a year ago.
Factory shutdowns on the back of Red Sea shipping diversions and an arson attack on its Berlin Gigafactorywere to blame,Tesla said.
Production was also hit “due to the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3 at our Fremont factory,” the firm added.
Analysts polled by FactSet had estimated deliveries to come in at 457,000 for the quarter, with the fall marking the first year-on-year decline recorded by Tesla since 2020.
Production slipped 1.6% to 433,371 vehicles.
Despite the figures, Tesla regained its spot as the world’s largest EV seller against heated competition from China’s BYD, which had taken over late last year, before missing the mark with just 300,114 battery-electric model sales during the first quarter.
Tesla slipped 5.97% on the news to US$164.75, equating to around a US$35 billion drop in value.