Tesla Motors posts $293.2-million loss for 2nd quarter

Perhaps nobody is as optimistic as Musk, as he said in the call that the problems that the company faced in the production of the Model X electric SUV are now solved.

The electric-car maker’s reported a second-quarter adjusted loss of $1.06 per share on $1.56 billion in sales.

Total revenue was US$1.3 billion (NZ$1.8b), short of estimates of $1.6 billion (NZ$2.2b) but still up 10 per cent from the previous quarter, according to the report, which was released Wednesday. This loss was greater than analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, whoo had expected a loss of USUSUS$0.60 per share.60 per share.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. The revenue is anticipated to fall at $1.6 billion, 36% significantly higher than the $1.20 billion it generated a year ago. It more than doubled the losses on earnings per share for the second quarter of 2016.

Tesla is hoping the Model 3 will widen its market appeal with a more affordable vehicle. Investors dropped the value of both companies following the announcement.

Despite lower-than-expected production numbers in the first half of the year, Tesla remains confident it can hit delivery goals by the end of 2016.

This ease in preparing the Model Y could also be the reason why Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that the vehicle would be able to command up to 1 million units of demand per year.

“The priority vehicle development after the Model 3 would be the Model Y, the compact SUV, because that’s also a auto that where we expect to see demand in the 500,000 to 1 million unit per year level”, Musk said. It expects to deliver just under 80,000 vehicles worldwide this year, up from 50,500 in 2015. Analysts pegged the company for a 52 cents-per-share loss.

Musk said: “In the development of a vehicle, there’s a long phase in the beginning of the development that involves a lot of time, but not a lot of costs”. Analyst’s mean target price for Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is $252.58 while analysts mean recommendation is 2.90.

The company mentioned adding stores in new markets like Taipei, Seoul, and Mexico City, as well as its more mature markets like in California.

Musk said Tesla would unveil its truck and bus designs in the next six to nine months, “and then have a better, a more fleshed out plan for when those would enter production”.

“We’re not totally clear why they opened an investigation because they actually had all the information before they opened a formal investigation”, he said.