Tesla Posts 13th Straight Loss, Says On Track For Second-Half Deliveries (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Tesla Motors Inc reported its 13th straight quarterly loss as a rise in sales of its Model S and Model X electric cars failed to make up for the huge cost of ramping up production. The company, run by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, said on Wednesday it was on track to deliver about 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles during the second half of 2016. Shares of Tesla, which has offered to buy solar panel installer SolarCity Corp for $2.6 billion, were volatile in after-hours trading. They were last up 1 percent. Tesla delivered 14,402 vehicles in the second quarter, missing its goal of 17,000. It delivered 14,810 vehicles in the first quarter, which was also less than its expectations. Tesla said its net loss widened to $293.2 million, or $2.09 per share, in the second quarter, from $184.2 million, or $1.45 per share, a year earlier. Total revenue rose 33 percent to $1.27 billion in the quarter ended June 30. In addition to acquiring SolarCity, Tesla has unveiled its massive $5 billion Gigafactory in Nevada last week and announced its "Master Plan, Part Deux" not too long before that, which includes manufacturing electric trucks and buses, as well as a ride-sharing program.

Comments

Re:Meanwhile.....

[gweilo8888]

If nobody wanted it, their sales last month wouldn't have been 267,258 units (GM) / 215,268 units (Ford) vs. just an estimated 3,300 units (Tesla). Those two brands also wouldn't own one-third of the entire market between them, versus 0.2% of the market for Tesla.

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html

The truth of the matter is that at the prices they're being sold for, most people want a Ford or GM far more than they want a Tesla.

Re:Happened with Internal Combustion cars, too.

[haruchai]

Battery prices have been falling very quickly for years. They were estimated to be ~$600 per kWh in 2012 and expected to reach $200 per kWh by 2020 and $160 by 2025
http://www.plugincars.com/lith...

We may already be at the $200 level or getting close and *should* beat that $160 level by 2019.

Steel cage bodies?? EVs aren't the only ones requiring those.

Re:Meanwhile.....

[toadlife]

The batteries lose very little capacity as long as they are thermally managed and never fully charged or discharged. GM's Gen-1 Volt has a "charge window" of 20% to 85%. They increased a bit with the Gen2 Volt after getting real-world data from Gen-1 Volts in the wild.

There are 2011/2012 Chevy Volts in the wild with around 100K EV miles and no apparent battery degradation.

Here is all-time the leader, "Sparkie",a GM employee from Michigan:

http://www.voltstats.net/Stats...

And mine... ;) (Yes, I'm totally biased)

http://www.voltstats.net/Stats...

You can browse the leaderboard, sort by "EV miles" and browse others.

As for Tesla, I don't think their batteries are quite up to the level of GM's, but they do employ active battery cooling and a charge window.

The one model that doesn't have active liquid cooling, the Nissan Leaf, is notorious for suffering significant range degradation after only a few years.