After reporting mixed second-quarter financial results, the Tesla CEO filled investors and analysts in on his expectations for the rest of 2016 and the next few years, according to Reuters and Electrek.
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Tesla said its net quarterly loss widened to $293.2 million (roughly Rs. 1,962 crores), or $2.09 per share, from $184.2 million, or $1.45 per share, a year earlier. Overall revenue did rise 33 percent to $1.27 billion from previous year but operating costs also rose 34 percent to $512.8 million. The 50,000 forecast for second-half deliveries exceeded the average of 48,300 estimated by three analysts.
USA carmaker Tesla disappointed with its second quarter results as it recorded a $293m loss for the period compared to a year ago.
The reason why Tesla didn’t plunge after earnings is probably that the company said it expects to deliver about 50,000 cars in the second half of 2016 after delivering 29,192 in the first six months.
More importantly, Tesla also reiterated its ambitious target to produce 500,000 vehicles in 2018, which allays some of the investors’ unease over the bigger-than-anticipated loss for this past quarter. The company blamed “steep production ramp, which resulted in nearly half of Q2 production occurring in the final four weeks of the quarter” for lower-than-expected deliveries (read: It’s All About Production: Tesla ETFs to Ride on Q1 Results).
Musk also said the new electric minibus will be based on the Model X platform, and draws design inspiration from the Volkswagen van. That amounts to a production rate of 2,000 vehicles per week. These vehicles consists of 4, 638 Model X and 9,764 Model S, which was slightly higher than what the automaker had announced last month production update. It’s a massive battery factory in Nevada, it’ll cover needs of drivers in the batteries for their Teslas. Its cash or cash equivalents are now at $3.25 billion, buoyed by the secondary stock offering of $1.7 billion this May and deposits on about 373,00 Model 3 orders.
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The company also recently agreed to purchase SolarCity (SCTY) for $2.6 billion in shares. Reducing the two third-quarter payments from the mid-year cash balance would leave Tesla with $2.1 billion. It is just how Elon is going to fund all this for both companies. The small SUV will be called, as expected, the Model Y. That would extend the four-vehicle lineup to the models “S3XY”.
