Tesla set to report fourth-quarter earnings after the bell

Tesla is set to report fourth-quarter earnings for 2023 after the bell Wednesday.

Here's what analysts are expecting, according to estimates compiled by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

While other U.S. automakers struggled to make and sell a high volume of fully electric vehicles last year, Tesla reported 484,507 deliveries in the fourth quarter and more than 1.8 million for 2023. Hefty price cuts helped Tesla achieve that number, which was a record for the company.

Tesla's revenue likely increased by around 5% year over year for the quarter, per LSEG.

On the global stage, Chinese auto giant BYD topped Tesla during the last quarter of 2023. But Tesla maintained its lead in sales of battery electric vehicles for the full year.

Labor costs are rising domestically. In order to make its wages competitive versus automakers like General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, where employees are represented by the United Auto Workers, Tesla recently rolled out pay increases for many of its hourly factory employees in the U.S.

Tesla is also facing union pressure in Sweden and across Scandinavia, and a wide-ranging array of litigation and ongoing regulatory probes in the U.S. and Europe. CEO Elon Musk is under more pressure than ever to deliver on his longstanding promise of a software update that can turn existing Teslas into self-driving robotaxis without hardware changes.

Tesla shareholders submitted questions for executives to answer via the platform Say Technologies ahead of the earnings call.

They're asking when Tesla plans to debut its "next-generation" vehicle, a more affordable EV referred to by fans as the Model 2. Investors also want to know the number of orders Tesla has received for its recently released Cybertruck and when the