U.S.-based electric vehicle maker Tesla posted its Q3 2013 earnings, which shows an increase in revenue but shares slid on the back of a weak future outlook.
Tesla reported earnings of $16 million, or 12 cents per share, which beat analyst' prediction of 11 cents per share. The company announced that it lost $38 million, or 32 cents a share, in Q3 2013. Founded in 2003, Tesla posted profits for the first time during Q1 2013. The company's shares have risen by over 400 percent in 2013.
Tesla Motors gained a lot of popularity in the car industry for producing the Tesla Roadster, which is the first fully electric sports car. The company is also well-known for making the Model S, a fully electric luxury sedan.
The company will likely focus a lot on the Model S in the near future. Tesla announced that it made good improvements in the vehicle's gross margin, which rose to 21 percent when compared to 14 percent in Q2 2013. The company revealed that cost reductions for the vehicle were achieved through a variety of approaches such as process efficiencies, design improvement and waste reduction in the car production. Tesla also added that the cost reduction does not come after decreasing the value proposition to the customer.
"We finished the quarter with a record of slightly over 5,500 deliveries, including over 1,000 deliveries to European customers. Production in the quarter significantly exceeded deliveries in order to fill the pipeline of vehicles in transit to Europe and provide cars for service and marketing uses. We plan to continue to increase production over the next several quarters in order to keep up with the growth in demand," said Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk and Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja, regarding the Model S, in a letter to shareholders.
However, the company confirmed that the profit for Q4 2013 will be similar to Q3 2013, which falls short of 20 cents per share, according to analysts.
A weak future forecast made the shares of the company tumble by around 11.5 percent after the company made the earnings call.
