The new target – which sceptics say is unattainable – will require a more than 50 percent rise in capital spending to $2.25 billion (1.97 billion euros) the company said.
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Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc. brushed off a big first-quarter loss and cheered investors with news that it plans to accelerate its production plans.
Tesla did report a net loss in the first quarter, but is on track to deliver around 90,000 electric vehicles this year.
Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, its first mass-market product, has generated massive interest since it was unveiled on March 31.
For years, Musk has said that Tesla wants to be delivering 500,000 vehicles per year by 2020 as a long term goal. Non-GAAP revenue of $1.60bn just topped the analyst consensus, by about $5m. However, the stock has plummeted more than 5 percent in Thursday’s session after the market had a bit more time to digest what it saw from Tesla. It was its 12th consecutive quarterly loss, and followed Musk’s incorrect prediction that Tesla was about to find itself in the black.
Musk said significant new hires would be announced in the coming weeks, while the company rejected reports that the executive rejig was related to recent delays and a recall relating to its Model X.
Tesla said the Model X’s reliability trends are comparable with those on the Model S sedan, which has improved considerably over the last two years, and that it was working quickly to address any problems.
In the call, Musk touted Tesla’s “excellent production team”. Tesla is taking a $1,000 deposit as part of the reservations process, but since that’s fully-refundable there’s not much of a downside to holding a space but leaving the flexibility to pick a different vehicle in the meantime. I think it’s going to make sense for us to raise some amount of money, some combination of equity and debt and make sure the company has a good buffer of cash on hand. However, the automaker is likely to do this without its two top production executives: Production Vice President Greg Reichow, and Manufacturing Vice President Josh Ensign.
For Tesla to hit this goal, let alone increase production more than 11 fold over the next four years, it needs its suppliers to hit their goals and for other things to go right. The company plans to sell 500,000 pieces of this vehicle by 2018.
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Excluding items, the company lost $0.57 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of US$0.87 per share.
