Shares of Tesla Inc. TSLA surged Monday following news of Elon Musk’s settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over securities fraud. The company released some of its own news Tuesday morning about its third-quarter vehicle production and deliveries.
What Happened
Tesla produced 80,142 vehicles in Q3, a 50-percent increase from the all-time high last quarter. Of those, 53,239 were Model 3s. The company delivered 55,840 Model 3s, which came in just shy of the 56,000 analyst estimate.
“To put this in perspective, in just Q3, we delivered more than 80% of the vehicles that we delivered in all of 2017, and we delivered about twice as many Model 3s as we did in all previous quarters combined,” a press release said.
Why It’s Important
Vertical Research Group analyst Gordon Johnson commented on the production report, outlining noticeable aspects that were left out by the company. According to Johnson, second-quarter reports demonstrated GAAP profit and positive cash flow, the Model 3 backlog and strong orders which exceeded production, while Tuesday’s release included little relating to profitability.
Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster remains optimistic.
“We believe, based on the level of Model 3 deliveries, of which 11.1K were vehicles in transit from the Jun-18 quarter, the company will likely be cash flow positive (excluding the impact of non-recourse lease financing) and slightly profitable. This is a step in the right direction, but more work remains,” he said in a post.
What’s Next
Quickly following the SEC settlement, these results should prove imperative to the company’s success going forward, as strong sales turns the attention away from Musk and back to Tesla’s production.
“With production stabilized, delivery and outbound vehicle logistics were our main challenges during Q3," the press release said. "We made many improvements to these processes throughout the quarter, and plan to make further improvements in Q4 so that we can scale successfully. As part of this effort, we plan to continue to expand direct deliveries to customers at their home or office, a service we launched in Q3 to improve customer convenience.”
Tesla shares were down 1 percent to $307.27 at time of publication.
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