Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:TSLA) deliveries in the third quarter missed consensus expectations for the first time in three years.
The miss was driven by supply constraints and “a deliberate effort to smooth deliveries,” according to Needham. At the time of writing, the Austin, Texas-based company's stock is down more than 7.4%.
The Analyst: Vikram Bagr maintained a Hold rating for Tesla.
The Tesla Thesis: Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the efforts to smooth deliveries resulted from the need to reduce expedited costs and improve customer experience, Bagr said.
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"We think Optimus could eventually deliver labor cost savings and efficiency gains in Tesla's gigafactories once it takes over 'dangerous, repetitive, or boring' manufacturing and logistics tasks with a carry and deadlift capacity of 45 lbs. / 150 lbs. respectively,” the analyst wrote.
“We believe that there is upside to street estimates to 4Q production/deliveries. However, the 40k unit/week target by YE still appears to be a stretch,” he added.
TSLA Price Action: Shares of Tesla had declined by 7.27% to $245.97 at the time of publication Monday.
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