It's not a bad sign, they have the best selling EV in the world and expect to be profitable from here on out.
If they they aren't profitable the next 3 quarters then I'd be worried.
Why did PRODUCTION drop? What happened to US demand? The M3 sold 61,000 Units Q4 2018 in the USA alone. Why would expanding to China + Europe lower both production and deliveries?
Why would Tesla only make 51,000 M3 cars when trying to satisfy China + US + Europe?
Note what Tesla said: > At the end of the first quarter, approximately 10,600 vehicles were in transit to customers globally.
Okay, so lets say all of those vehicles in transit were delivered in Q1. That means Tesla "would have" delivered 70,000 cars (total, S+X+3), which is still a 20% drop from the 90,000 (S+X+3) delivered in Q4.
I mean, that's expected for a growth company. What's unexpected for a "growth" company is a sudden halt in growth.
Why would production drop by roughly 10% and deliveries drop by 30% in one quarter? I think most people were expecting a drop of some kind due to the loss of the $7500 tax credit, but 30% drop is far larger of a drop than almost anyone ever expected.
Note that Tesla also dropped the price of all M3 by $2000. So Tesla also has lower-margins in Q1 2019 than Q4 2018. Lower-margins AND lower-volume is a pretty bad sign.