Tesla's quarterly shipments will be below forecast, says Baird. Is there a risk to the stock?

Tesla's second-quarter electric car sales could be weaker than the Wall Street consensus forecast, Baird Equity Research has warned. The company has declining revenue in Europe and China, where consumers increasingly favor Chinese brands. A bright spot for Tesla was the test launch of a robotaxi in Texas, which could offset the weak statistics: investors no longer evaluate the company only by the number of electric cars sold, analysts said.

Tesla is expected to release its second-quarter deliveries data on July 2, and it could come in below investor expectations, warned Baird Equity Research in a note quoted by MarketWatch. Baird analyst Ben Kallo predicted deliveries would total 377,000 vehicles. That's 13k below the average Wall Street forecast, according to FactSet. By comparison, the company shipped 444k vehicles in the second quarter of 2024.

«Third-party sources, including Chinese auto registration data and May wholesale figures, reinforce our confidence that shipments will come in below consensus,» Kallo wrote.

The analyst also noted that the results could have been influenced by the Model Y - one of the most popular cars in the company's lineup. It ramped up its production at all four of its plants at the end of the first quarter, and that process probably continued into the beginning of the second quarter, Kallo suggested.

Tesla sales in Europe collapsed in May for the fifth consecutive month, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) showed. There were 8,729 new Tesla vehicles registered in the EU in May - 40% fewer than in the same period a year earlier. Across the EU, the UK and European Free Trade Association countries (includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), registrations were down 28% to 13,863. Tesla's share of the European market fell from 1.8% in May 2024 to 1.2% in May 2025, according to ACEA statistics.

The decline in Tesla sales in May occurred despite the growth of the electric car market in the EU. Sales of battery electric vehicles were up 25% year-on-year, with Germany alone up nearly 45%.

Chinese automakers sold 65,808 vehicles in Europe in May, more than doubling their market share to 5.9 percent, according to data from JATO Dynamics. «Despite the EU imposing duties on Chinese electric vehicles, brands from the PRC continue to show strong growth in Europe,» said JATO analyst Felipe Muñoz.

In China itself - the second-largest market for the automaker - shipments are also declining, wrote Reuters. According to the China Passenger Car Association, Model 3 and Model Y shipments from the Shanghai plant fell 15 percent in May (after dropping 6 percent in April) from a year ago to 61,662 electric cars. BYD remains the main competitor on the Chinese market.

According to Baird, the lack of announcement of a new budget electric car contributed to the decline in sales, with Callo expecting news of a new one by the end of June.

«Given the time remaining until the end of the month, we suspect the presentation will be delayed,» the analyst wrote. He previously thought the new model would be different in form factor from the current lineup, but now expects it to be a simplified version of the Model 3 or Model Y that could be assembled on existing production lines, writes MarketWatch. Still, Kallo anticipates that the company will provide an update on the new car in its second-quarter report, which will be released in mid-July.

According to Baird, Tesla's declining sales may be overshadowed by the hype surrounding the launch of its robot cab last weekend. Tesla's unmanned driving technology presentation in Austin inspired investors, and Tesla shares jumped sharply on Monday. However, the stock began to decline as early as Tuesday, and on Wednesday it dropped 3.8%.

However, according to Kallo, the market's attention has shifted to robotaxis.

«While delivery remains a key element of fundamentals, we believe the robotaxi launch and related enthusiasm will dominate the news agenda in the short term,» he wrote Wednesday.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor