When Tesla released their first quarter figures many were looking for good news about the much-ballyhooed Gigafactory or progress in China, but even with news on those fronts, the numbers themselves stand out as Tesla reported a $50 million loss on a GAAP basis and only produced 7, 535 cars.
While the green car automaker did report earnings per share of $0.12, which was better than expected, it was less than some analysts expected and the stock plummeted 15.5 percent in after hours markets to $186.85.
Still, CEO Elon Musk is forging ahead in China, instructing his team to “spend money as fast as they can without wasting it.”
Though the stock tumbled, there is apparently some good news: domestic demand increased 10 percent and there is “significant sequential increase in worldwide net orders for Model S.” This is especially true in China where Musk is “blown away” by the excitement there and forging ahead with building out Supercharger and service center infrastructure.
In other news, Tesla is going to shut its Fremont facility down for 10 days in July while it installs a quicker production line with better automation. Musk sees this as a cost-cutting measure, as labor and overhead is expensive, and the company wants to meet its end of year gross margin target of 28 percent.
The Gigafactory is still a go, with Musk hoping to turn dirt on one or two possible locations as early as early as next month and California being back in the running as a site for it. Musk still is weary of California because of the length of time it takes to get approvals for “green-field” developments, so Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico are still in the hunt.
Finally, customers waiting on a Model X, might need to learn the value of patience as deliveries might be pushed back to the second quarter of 2015, a couple of months later than expected.
Source: green.autoblog.com
