Shares in Tesla Inc. dropped by over 4% in late trading after the electric car maker missed on both earnings per share and revenue in the fourth quarter.

For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share of 71 cents, down from $1.19 per in the same quarter of 2022, on revenue of $25.17 billion, up 3.5% year-over-year. Analysts had been expecting earnings per share of 73 cents on revenue of $25.61 billion.

Tesla reported $2.1 billion in net operating income in the quarter, or $2.5 billion on an adjusted basis. The figures for the quarter included a onetime noncash tax benefit of $5.9 billion for the release of valuation allowance on certain deferred tax assets. Operating free cash flow in the quarter was $2.1 billion and cash and equivalents on hand totaled $29.1 billion as of the end of December. Through 2023, Tesla delivered 1.2 million Model Ys, making it, at least according to Tesla, the best-selling vehicle globally.

In the words of Tesla, “for a long time, many doubted the viability of EVs. Today, the best-selling vehicle on the planet is an EV.” Presumably, millions are no longer rushing to buy them in cold climates such as Chicago, however. In total, Tesla produced 1.845 million vehicles in 2023 and delivered 1.808 million.

Although Tesla missed on revenue and earnings, the headline metrics were not the only thing that had investors concerned. The company advising that its “vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023, as our teams work on the launch of the next-generation vehicle at Gigafactory Texas.” This would suggest that Tesla will fall short of an expected 2.19 million vehicles this year.

The interesting part, though, is that Tesla intends to make a new vehicle. In its earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said, “We’re very far along on our next-gen low-cost vehicle; we’re really excited about this. This is a revolutionary manufacturing system, far more advanced than any other in the world.”

The earnings report comes at a somewhat tumultuous time for Tesla, frozen unusable cars in Chicago aside. On Dec. 5, a Telsa whistle-blower claimed that the software powering the company’s self-driving cars was not ready and should not be used on public roads.

Lukasz Krupski, a former service technician for the company, says he was fired from his job in Oslo, Norway, when he questioned the safety of Tesla’s autopilot driver-assistance software. He subsequently handed more than 100 gigabytes of data to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, a leak that has become known as the “Tesla Files.”

Tesla also rolled out a software update to address a safety issue affecting Autopilot on Dec. 13 in response to an investigation by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The probe focused on an Autopilot feature called Autosteer that automatically detects road edges and ensures the vehicle in which it’s running stays within its driving lane.

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