When Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports first-quarter earnings after markets close Wednesday, all the attention on the company will refocus away from batteries and back onto cars. The company is expected to post a non-GAAP net loss of $0.50 a share on revenues of $1.04 billion, a sharp drop from adjusted earnings per share of $0.12 in the year-ago quarter. Tesla posted a non-GAAP net loss of $0.13 a share ($0.86 on a GAAP basis) in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The key for Tesla is getting its finished cars delivered. In the fourth quarter it built nearly 2,000 more cars than it delivered. The company cited bad weather and shipping problems as the reason for the delay and said it would deliver the cars in the first quarter. We assume the backlog was among the 10,030 cars the company has already announced that it delivered in the first quarter.

However, Tesla has said it plans to build 55,000 cars this year, or an average of 13,750 a quarter. Even if the company only built 10,000 in the first quarter, that still leaves about 2,000 cars undelivered — or dare we say it, unsold. The high-performance P85D version with its dual motors has been a modest hit among those willing to pay more than $105,000 for a car, but those sales are not going to get the job done.

Planned third-quarter delivery of the Model X SUV cannot slip. If Tesla even hints at a slip to the delivery schedule analysts will pounce.

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We will also be looking for some encouraging words on Tesla’s troubles in China. The company fired about 30% of its sales staff in China during the first quarter, and while total sales in the country will not see much improvement, CEO Elon Musk needs to at least fill in some of the blanks on how the company plans to boost its sales in China.

Finally, how are gross margins holding up? In the fourth quarter, gross margin came in at 26.7%, below Tesla’s own target of 28% for the quarter. Tesla said then that it expected gross margin of 26% in the first quarter and gross margins on the Model S of 30% for all of 2015.

The stock traded down about 0.8% at $231.21 Wednesday morning, in a 52-week range of $177.22 to $291.42. The consensus price target on the stock is $263.59, and the high target is $400.00.

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