The Robotaxi craze cannot hide the "automotive winter"? Wall Street warns that Tesla's Q2 delivery volume may perform poorly

According to Zhitong Finance APP, with the implementation of autonomous driving taxis (robotaxi) in Austin, Tesla (TSLA.US) is less than a week away from releasing its second-quarter delivery report. The market's widely expected delivery volume has dropped to 393,000 vehicles, down from 443,956 vehicles in the same period last year, but up from 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter. Tesla's quarterly delivery record stands at 495,570 units, achieved in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Investment bank Baird has lowered its second-quarter delivery forecast to 377,000 vehicles. Analyst Ben Kallo pointed out that weak third-party data since May, along with a slight resumption of production for the new Model Y (which has continued slightly into this quarter), may lead to poor data performance.

Kallo wrote, "Although delivery volume remains an important component of the fundamentals, we note that the recently launched autonomous taxi service and the public's eager anticipation of this opportunity may dominate in the short term. We believe that launching a more affordable model could have a net negative profit impact in the second half of 2025."

Meanwhile, Barclays analysts expect Tesla to deliver about 375,000 electric vehicles in the second quarter of 2025, while UBS predicts a delivery volume of 366,000 vehicles for that quarter.

UBS stated in its report that as investors focus on Tesla's autonomous taxi Robotaxi, many bulls are likely to "ignore" electric vehicle delivery data, as they believe the value of Tesla stock lies in artificial intelligence (robot taxis and humanoid robots). However, UBS emphasized that Tesla's current financial performance primarily relies on its automotive business. This business not only helps fund cutting-edge operations but, as stock prices rise and the outlook for the automotive business worsens, the market injects higher premiums into already expensive AI options, despite scant supporting data.

UBS indicated that an underwhelming delivery report could serve as a reality check. Historical data shows that delivery volumes falling short of expectations tend to trigger declines in Tesla's stock price, but the anomaly from the last quarter is worth noting: despite delivery volumes being 11% below market expectations, Tesla's stock price rose 5%, marking the largest divergence since 2022. This may suggest that Tesla has further entered a world where "automotive fundamentals do not matter."

Seeking Alpha analyst Jonathan Weber stated, "In the first quarter, poor delivery volumes were attributed by Tesla to the Model Y's generational issue. If the data for the second quarter does not show significant improvement, then the reasoning regarding the Model Y's generational change will not hold—this would indicate that Tesla has serious ongoing demand issues. Recent regional data from China and some European countries suggests that overall delivery volumes in the second quarter are likely to perform poorly, so investors may need to prepare for bad news." Oakoff Investments pointed out: "Current market trends indicate that the delivery volume in the second quarter should be similar to that in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, but the latest data from China shows that the actual numbers may fall short of expectations again... The competition in the industry is clearly becoming more intense, especially in China. On the other hand, there are also signs of weakness in Tesla's sales market in Europe... However, historically, the delivery volume in the second quarter has almost always been higher than that in the first quarter, so the second quarter could potentially match the first quarter (or even be slightly higher than the first quarter, although there will be a double-digit year-on-year decline), thereby alleviating the already lowered market expectations."