Tesla delivered more than 40,000 cars to customers in the second quarter of 2018, including some 18,000 of the crucial Model 3, helping it to post higher than expected revenues. However, the firm still posted record losses.
The American electric car maker says it achieved its target of making 5000 Model 3 saloons a week “multiple” times in July, helping it achieve $4bn [£3.05bn] of revenue, a 43% increase on the same period last year. However, Tesla still lost more than $717 million [£547m] in the three months from April until June.
Tesla boss Elon Musk said the losses were because the firm had been spending heavily to reach its production targets for the Model 3 and that it was set to produce more than 50,000 cars in the third quarter. Tesla is aiming to make 6000 Model 3s per week by the end of August, although it has moved back long-term goals to increase production to 10,000 per week.
In a letter to shareholders, Musk said Tesla was now in a position to make a profit later this year. He wrote: “It took 15 years to execute on our initial goal to produce an affordable, long-range electric vehicle that can also be highly profitable. In the second half of 2018, we expect, for the first time in our history, to become both sustainably profitable and cash flow positive.”
Tesla has reduced its staff levels and cut other expenses to reduce its capital expenditure and increase profitability. For example, the firm recently asked a small number of suppliers for cash back. That, combined with the steadier production flow, helped Tesla stocks to rise in value following the earnings announcement.
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Production ramp up
They've been doing 5k a week for a little while now and to be fair, only a small part of production is in a tent!
I would reiterate though that considering the size of the task (taking on massive multinationals at car manufacture, people who've been doing it for over a century in an industry with massive barriers to entry), Telsa is doing amazingly well.
Finally, "fanboy" is overused. Stating facts and evidence doesn't make you a fanboy. Believing in something (like xBox or Trump) in spite of the evidence does make you a fanboy - but I'm not doing that. If Musk starts doing more name-calling and less engineering I'll be happy to change my view.
some production ramp...
So 18k Model 3s in most recent quarter and 6k/week goal by end of August suggests 68,000/quarter is the goal (13 weeks @6k fo the fanboys who seems to have difficuly reading Tesla financials). That's some ramp! Maybe it will happen, I have no inside knowledge to suggest it can't, but from the outside...
Yeah, okay, I'll go easy, and it is easy to knock the guy. He looks stressed out, and his 'pedo' name calling to the cave guy who upstaged him was classic (Elon's dad married his sister!) but ignoring the temptation to bash Elon, or his fanboys, that is some production ramp for a company assembling high tech cars under tents in a parking lot!
Even the Sun is more accurate than you
"Elon's dad married his sister" even the Sun managed to to get it relationship right "Step sister".
As to the cave man stunt, yes Musk was wrong but as usual hearing the whole story makes it a bit more interesting. The cave guy wound him up beforehand by saying the charitable offer was a "PR stunt".
Anti-Tesla whingers
You all crawl out of the woodwork to bash Musk even when things look positive? He's made some mistakes recently (calling that diver a pedo was crass and dumb, no matter what the provocation) but he's still single-handedly changing the world. He's done more to address climate change by funding and building Tesla than any other individual in the world and he's doing more to make life multi-planetary with SpaceX than anyone else too, just in case we're too late to stop climate change snowballing.
Tesla's survival to this point is something of a miracle considering how many well-funded opponents try to kill it's ability to raise funds at crucial times in a concerted attempt to bankrupt it. Once Tesla is cash positive it'll be hard to stop and that's good, because the majority of driven vehicles need to get off fossil fuels ASAP.
It seems fashionable to bash Tesla and Musk at the moment but look at the evidence folks instead of following the herd.