Tesla Motors Posts Smaller Loss, Shares Up 5%

(RTTNews) - Luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), Wednesday reported a loss for the second quarter that narrowed from a year ago, driven largely by a nearly-double increase in revenues. Shares of Tesla jumped five percent in the after-hours trading.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla reported second-quarter loss of $336.4 million or $2.04 per share, compared to last year's loss of $293.2 million or $2.09 per share.

Excluding items, adjusted loss for the quarter were $1.33 per share, compared to adjusted loss of $1.61 per share last year. On average, 19 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected loss of $1.80 per share for the quarter.

Tesla's revenues for the quarter nearly doubled to $2.01 billion from $1.03 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.55 billion.

Automotive gross margins for the quarter improved to 27.9 percent from 23.1 percent a year ago.

On July 28, Tesla started delivering the its affordable car Model 3. The company says it is averaging over 1,800 reservations per day for Model 3.

"In addition to the increased orders for Model S and Model X, customer response to Model 3 has been overwhelming. Since the handover event last week, we are averaging over 1,800 net Model 3 reservations per day," Tesla said in its letter.

The company said it is set to produce over 500,000 Model 3 vehicles annually. "Based on our preparedness at this time, we are confident we can produce just over 1,500 vehicles in Q3, and achieve a run rate of 5,000 vehicles per week by the end of 2017. We also continue to plan on increasing Model 3 production to 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018," Tesla said.

Tesla delivered 22,026 Model S and Model X vehicles in second quarter, for a total of 47,077 in the first half of the year. Model S and Model X combined deliveries in the quarter grew almost 53% globally versus the prior year, even though the luxury vehicle market was essentially flat.

Moving ahead, Tesla continues to expect Model S and Model X deliveries to increase in the second half of 2017, as compared to the first half of the year.

TSLA closed Wednesday's trading at $325.89, up $6.32 or 1.98%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $16.14 or 4.95% in the after-hours trading.