Tesla lost $154.2 million in the first quarter of 2015 while revenues rose to $1.1 billion

By Miles Branman May 7, 2015

In the first quarter of 2015, Tesla recorded a loss of $154.2 million. While that figure would be dooming for nearly any other automaker, Wall Street responded by contributing to an 11 percent rise in the automaker’s stock after the news broke Wednesday.

Confused? Let me elaborate. Tesla has yet to be profitable, but, with revenues continually on the rise, noted high costs of new technology development, additional vehicles in the works, and production efficiencies still building, those who carefully monitor the startup automaker’s finances are looking for the amount of losses posted, not whether it’s profitable yet. And those losses have shrunk. Wall Street expected Tesla to post a loss of 52 cents per share after adjusting for non-recurring expenses, yet it only posted a loss of 36 cents per share.

Additionally, Tesla’s revenues have grown to $1.1 billion in this past quarter, while analysts only expected $1.04 billion. Beating estimates by a fair margin is always a huge win, and that’s why Tesla’s stock price is now over $230 per share.

That $1.1 billion in revenues came from sales of 10,045 Model S electric vehicles in Q1, while 11,160 models were built in the same period. With the Model X crossover set to begin production in Q3 of this year, Tesla estimates 55,000 vehicles will be sold by year’s end. That figure would represent a 74 percent increase from 2014’s total.

And it’s not all about cars these days with Tesla. The new Powerwall and Powerpack energy products are now on the market, and Tesla says there have been 38,000 pre-orders for the Powerwall just this week.

Looking ahead, the Model 3, which will slot below the Model S in size and price sometime in 2017, will introduce a large crop of new customers who could never have afforded buying before. Tesla truly is growing up, folks, and breakeven is just around the corner.

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