Tesla’s electric vehicle sales continue to decline amid an industry-wide slowdown, prompting multiple players to delay or cancel their electrification plans.
The Musk-led company seemingly tries to counter its disappointing electric vehicle sales in the first quarter with the early release of its energy storage deployment results.
Tesla Energy booms
Tesla’s electric vehicle business growth might be demonstrating a downshift right now, but its energy storage unit is making up for it.
Tesla officially released its Q1 2024 delivery and production results on April 2, 2024. It usually only includes figures for the automotive business. However, this time, the Musk-led company suddenly decided to reveal the results of its energy storage business.
According to the quarterly report, Tesla’s energy storage deployment reached a record of 4,053 MWh in the first quarter of 2024. For comparison, Tesla only deployed 3,889 MWh in Q1 2023 and 3,202 MWh in Q4 2023.
“We deployed 4,053 MWh of energy storage products in Q1, the highest quarterly deployment yet.”
Tesla indicated in the quarterly report
It is worth noting that Tesla did not disclose any figures about its solar deployment in the first quarter of the year.
More growth prospects
Tesla’s energy storage business is undoubtedly still growing, and it has the potential to expand further in the rest of the year.
A Tesla fan and YouTuber @metgodinwilderness7130 spotted Tesla deploying an enormous number of battery packs in its Megafactory in Lathrop, California, on April 28.
The Lathrop Megafactory currently houses the production of Tesla Megapacks for larger energy storage projects.
In addition, more than 440 Megapacks were seen in the Megafactory’s shipping yard earlier this year. This figure alone is already more than 1,700 MWh of energy storage waiting for deployment.
Tesla is also developing its second Megafactory in Shanghai, China. If production at the new Megapack factory can start this year, it could further boost the company’s energy storage deployment growth.
Moreover, Tesla is also accelerating the production of its Powerwall for residential energy storage applications.
Tesla EV sales disappoints
Tesla’s global electric vehicle deliveries reached a total of 386,810 units, down 8.5% year-on-year. It marked the company’s lowest quarterly delivery results since Q3 2022.
Production | Deliveries | Subject to operating lease accounting | |
| Model 3/Y | 412,376 | 369,783 | 2% |
| Other Models | 20,995 | 17,027 | 1% |
| Total | 433,371 | 386,810 | 2% |
In March, the Wall Street forecast was about 470,000 deliveries. However, it has continuously declined ahead of Tesla’s official release as many expected a weaker quarterly performance than the prior one. The final consensus stood at 430,000 deliveries.
Tesla cited some excuses for missing electric vehicle delivery forecasts in Q1 2024.
“Decline in volumes was partially due to the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3 at our Fremont factory and factory shutdowns resulting from shipping diversions caused by the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin.”
Tesla
Nonetheless, the results were not surprising, as Tesla already warned investors last year that its vehicle volume growth rate would decline in 2024 due to its increased focus on developing its next-gen electric vehicle platform.
