Tesla Misses Estimates (By A Mile) But Affirms Delivery Targets

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) reported on Wednesday a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter, but reiterated its focus on car deliveries and for full-year capital expenditure to support the Model 3 production.

Tesla Motors Inc. booked a net loss of US$293.2 million for the second quarter—up from the US$184.2-million loss for the same period of 2015—on revenues of US$1.27 billion, which was up from US$955 million for the second quarter last year, and from US$1.147 billion for the first quarter of 2016.

Adjusted for items, Tesla booked a net loss of US$1.06 per share, compared to a loss of US$0.48 per share for the second quarter of 2015. This loss was greater than analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, whoo had expected a loss of US$0.60 per share, and analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, who had anticipated a loss of US$0.65 per share on revenue of US$1.65 billion.

Beyond the profit-and-loss numbers, however, analysts and investors alike were looking to Tesla’s updates on vehicle deliveries, production targets and capital expenditure plans.

The electric carmaker said it had delivered 14,402 new vehicles in the second quarter, revising up the delivery numbers it had reported in early July, when it said its second-quarter deliveries were “lower than anticipated” at 14,370 vehicles.

At that time, Tesla had reported that they also expected to produce and deliver about 50,000 vehicles in the second half of 2016, which was affirmed in its Wednesday Q2 statement, saying “production and demand are on track to support deliveries of approximately 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles.”

Tesla affirmed its capital expenditure goal for 2016 at US$2.25 billion to support the production plan for Model 3, whose launch is expected next year, as scheduled.

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.

It was quite a busy quarter for Tesla, in which it signed an agreement to acquire SolarCity, formally introduced its Gigafactory and unveiled the second part of its Master Plan.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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