U.S. jobs report for June shows a gain of 850,000, better than expected.
Tesla, the electric carmaker, sold 201,250 cars globally in the second quarter, twice as many as in the same period a year ago, the company said on Friday, suggesting that it was not as badly affected by a chip shortage that has limited the production of other automakers.
The company sold nearly 91,000 cars in the second quarter of 2020 when auto sales around the world were kept low by the pandemic. The company delivered nearly 185,000 cars in the first three months of this year.
“Our teams have done an outstanding job navigating through global supply chain and logistics challenges,” the company said in a statement.
It’s unclear how Tesla’s sales fared in the United States market because the company does not break out deliveries by country. On Thursday, General Motors and Toyota Motor said their U.S. sales rose 40 percent from April to June. For the last few years, Tesla’s growth has been mainly fueled by growth in China and Europe.
In contrast, Ford Motor, which has been hurt by the chip shortage more than most of its rivals, said on Friday that deliveries in the United States rose 9 percent in the second quarter, to 472,260 light trucks and cars, a modest gain compared with a year-ago total that had been depressed substantially by the pandemic.
Because of its reliance on a chip maker that had suffered a fire at a key factory this year in Japan, Ford had to idle several North American plants for various periods in the second quarter, and was only able to produce about half as many vehicles in the period as it had originally planned.
In June, when dealer inventories had dwindled because of the production cuts, Ford’s sales fell 27 percent compared with the same month in 2021. This week, the company outlined additional production halts planned for July at plants across North America.
Even Tesla has been hurt by the chip shortage. In the last several weeks, the company has dropped certain features from its vehicles, such as an adjustable lower-back support in passenger seats and a radar sensor from its Autopilot driver-assistance system. The company said lumbar support was hardly ever used by customers and that Autopilot’s cameras were sufficient, but analysts said the moves appeared to have been prompted at least in a part by the shortage of chips. Cars can use dozens of chips to control various features and systems, including engines, motors, touch screens and so on.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/02/business/economy-stock-market-news/