Tesla Motors knocking it out of the park, beating estimates, but still running a loss

Tesla Motors today released results for Q3 2013 showing they exceeded sales estimates by a big margin, but as a business they’re still running at a loss (on a GAAP basis). Tesla’s management is taking pains to show both non-GAAP and GAAP financial results, the only ones that count, hence what I look at as a reporter, is the GAAP results. The difference arises from the “lease accounting for our resale value guarantee (RVG) and employee stock based compensation as a result of the increase in our stock price last year.”

The company sold 22,477 Model S’s over the year, when their estimates had been 21,000 sales. Additionally they had significant drive train revenue from both Toyota and Daimler, and some revenue from regulatory stuff. No revenue came from ZEV credits, as expected.

For 2014 they plan to increase Model S production to over 35,000 cars, and implement sales in China and other places. Current sales are in the USA, Canada, and parts of Europe.

The Model X is supposed to start limited production at the end of 2014, with production ramping up during 2015. That’s the pattern they followed for the Model S, and it’s worked well for them so far.

I don’t have time to properly write this up – so here’s the shareholder letter they sent.

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.