Tesla Logged $713 Million In Revenue In Q1 and Built 7,535 Cars 131
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Tesla just announced its first-quarter earnings and the numbers are interesting. It logged revenue of $713 million on deliveries of 6,457 Model S electric cars. It's worth noting that's basically the number of vehicles it said it would sell in the quarter, but that number is slightly down from the prior quarter. It built a total of 7,535 Model S cars in the quarter as it built inventory as shipments began to China where sales just started last month. Net orders in North America grew 10 percent, and production for the second quarter is expected to increase to 8,500-9,000 Model S cars. Tesla expects to deliver 35,000 cars during the 2014 calendar year. Musk told analysts that China's enthusiastic and that government support is crucial. The Model X is delayed until spring of 2015 with production-design prototypes being ready in the fourth quarter. Tesla hopes to possibly break ground as early as next month on its gigafactory, though the location has yet to be announced. Of course, the stock market is already reacting to these numbers and is currently down nearly 3 percent in after hours trading."
At a loss (Score:4, Informative)
Not mentioned in the post for some reason was the loss of $49.8 million for the quarter compared to an $11.3 million profit in the same quarter last year. Accumulated losses since 2009 are on the order of $800 million.
http://files.shareholder.com/d... [shareholder.com]
Making cars is hard. Making a profit doing it is harder still.
Re:Odd numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Service for current vehicles.
Powertrains for Toyota's RAV4.
They sell fuel credits to other companies that make polluting vehicles.
etc.
Lots of this and that.
Re:going off-grid (Score:4, Informative)
A 60 kWh battery, assuming you don't mind cycling it to 100% discharge, which is extremely severe treatment, represents about 3-4 days of electricity for a house with very light electricity use based on my electric meter, and those of people I know. OTOH, where I am, sunlight is not uncommonly extremely poor for periods longer than that. Unless your photovoltaics are over proportioned by 10-20 times, or you've got at least twice the battery, it ain't gonna cut it.
It would be nice to be able to tap the battery with an inverter during power outages though. In my area when you lose power, you lose water supply (and heat of course). Not very good for sanitation. There's nothing to make you appreciate flush toilets more than 2-3 days without well water.
Nothing odd at all (Score:5, Informative)
How can you have a revenue of 731 M$ while producing in the same period about 500 M$ worth of merchandise?
Because Tesla doesn't just make money selling cars. Read their financial statements and they'll detail their sources of revenue. Nothing particularly surprising there. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to see Tesla end up making a big portion of their revenue manufacturing battery packs and power trains for other auto makers.
Re:At a loss (Score:5, Informative)
They were not planning to make a profit at this point. It's part of the long term strategy. Fancy that, a CEO who can see past the next quarter's results!