Tesla suffered its biggest revenue drop in more than a decade last night as demand for electric cars stagnates.
Just hours after announcing details of more than 6,000 job cuts in Texas and California, the company recorded sales of £17bn for the three months to the end of March.
The 9 per cent fall was the biggest since 2012. Profits also fell 55 per cent to £910 million compared to £6.4 billion a year ago.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company would accelerate the launch of “more affordable” vehicles.
The results came just hours after Tesla announced details of 2,688 job cuts at its Texas factory, where it makes the Cybertruck and Model Y cars, and another 3,332 in California.
£45bn pay deal: But Tesla boss Elon Musk (pictured) plans to cut 10% of the electric car maker’s workforce worldwide
The job losses are part of plans to lay off 10 percent of staff worldwide to cut costs, resulting in a total loss of 14,000 jobs.
The layoffs come at a difficult time for Tesla, which has been suffering from slowing demand for electric vehicles and production delays.
Earlier this month, the group revealed its first year-on-year sales drop since 2020.
The group delivered 386,810 vehicles in the three months to the end of March, more than a fifth less than the previous quarter and around 9 percent less than in the same period in 2023.
And the total number of cars delivered by Tesla also fell well short of Wall Street expectations of 454,000.
However, Tesla was able to regain its crown as the world leader in electric vehicle sales.
BYD, which is backed by investor Warren Buffett, surpassed Tesla in the final quarter of 2023 when it sold 526,409 electric vehicles compared to Tesla’s 484,507.
This led some analysts to dub the company the ‘Tesla Killer’ after it emerged victorious in a brutal price war in China, a country that builds and buys more electric cars than the rest of the world combined.
In January, Musk warned that Chinese automakers were set to “demolish” their global rivals.
Tesla also faces internal turbulence. The board is trying to convince shareholders to approve a £45bn pay deal for Musk, just months after the package was struck down in court.
The payday, decided in 2018, would be the largest in American corporate history.