BENGALURU: Tesla delivered a record number of electric vehicles in the fourth quarter, beating market estimates and meeting its 2023 target, but lost its spot as the top EV maker by sales to China’s BYD.

Tesla delivered 484,507 EVs in the October-to-December period, falling short of the 526,409 vehicles that Warren Buffett-backed BYD handed over — mostly in China — suggesting that car buyers were looking for cheaper models in a high-interest-rate economy.

While the US automaker’s year-end sales push mostly paid off, helping it deliver 1.8 million vehicles this year, it fell short of CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious two million annual internal target.

However, it is still ahead of BYD for the whole year. The Chinese firm delivered a total of 3.02 million vehicles, including about 1.4 million plug-in hybrid EVs.

Tesla stock, which doubled last year, was nearly flat on Tuesday in a broadly weaker market.

BYD’s deliveries show price cuts are working for the Chinese company, said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“The fight will hurt margins for both companies, but BYD clearly believes it’s a price worth paying to increase market share and recognition,” she added.

Tesla increased discounts and offered incentives like six months of free fast charging if customers took deliveries by December-end, in a bid to boost sales before some variants of its compact Model 3 sedan lose US federal tax credits in 2024.

That helped it post a growth of 11 per cent over the immediately previous quarter and higher than estimates of 473,253, according to 14 analysts polled by LSEG.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2024