Tesla shares tumble as much as 7% as sales fall short of analyst expectations

Tesla shares plummeted last night as latest sales fell short of skyrocketing expectations.

The electric car manufacturer recorded a record turnover of 19.1 billion pounds in the third quarter, 56 percent more than a year earlier. But it missed analysts’ forecasts, causing shares in after-hours trading on Wall Street to fall a whopping 7 percent.

The update for the three months to September also raised questions about boss Elon Musk’s plan to increase deliveries by 50 percent this year.

Tesla delivered a total of 343,830 new cars in the quarter, just 42 percent more than a year earlier.

Tesla insisted it would still meet its “over a multi-year horizon” target, but fears remain that the global economic turmoil and Musk’s takeover of Twitter are taking their toll.

Tesla posted a profit of £4.4 billion in the third quarter, 55 percent more than in the same period last year. It was buoyed by a jump in the average selling price of its cars, but was dogged by rising costs and difficulties in ensuring shipment for cars.

Tesla stock rose in 2020 and 2021 as demand for electric cars boomed and governments increasingly tried to discourage the use of petrol and diesel cars.

It made boss Elon Musk the world’s richest person with a net worth of around £200 billion, overtaking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

And the boom made Tesla the world’s most valuable automaker, ahead of giants like Toyota, Volkswagen and Ford.

But his shares have fallen more than 45 percent since Musk revealed he took a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter in April.

He then launched a £38 billion takeover bid on Twitter, which he feared would distract him from his duties as Tesla CEO.