Tesla 1Q new vehicle deliveries rise 55% from year ago

Palo Alto, Calif. — Tesla’s first-quarter new vehicle deliveries climbed 55 percent from a year earlier to more than 10,000 cars.

The electric vehicle maker said Friday that it has decided to report the number of new car deliveries within three days of quarter’s end going forward because “inaccurate sources of information are sometimes used by others to project the number of vehicle deliveries.”

Tesla Motors Inc. said that the delivery figure is only one measure of its financial performance and shouldn’t be relied on as an indicator of its quarterly financial results.

Tesla announced in February that it expects to deliver 55,000 vehicles in 2015, up from 31,655 in 2014. Based on the 10,030 vehicles delivered in the first quarter, it would need to deliver about 15,000 vehicles in each of the remaining three quarters to hit its 2015 target.

Late last month the Palo Alto, California-based company — which is led by Elon Musk — said it would reveal a new product on April 30 but that it’s not a car. Musk said in February that Tesla would soon unveil a home battery that would be ready to go into production in about six months.