After two quarters where your company lost $400 million each, it would seem there only be one direction that things could go in preparing for the release of third quarter financials. If your guess was that Tesla would beat their previous financial benchmarks – you were right … sort of.
Yes, Elon Musk’s paradigm-shifting company did not lose $400 million in the third quarter – it lost $619 million. This was the icing on the top of a quarter that included missed production deadlines, highly publicized layoffs and scrutiny from the National Labor Relations Board over employee treatment.
In addition to announcing a $2.92 loss per share and a free cash flow, which is basically the money that the company could use to buy stuff, of -$1.4 billion, Tesla also announced that it would be reducing production levels of their X and S models by 10 percent in the fourth quarter.
These production cuts are being positioned as a solution while the company tries to make good on more than 400,000 Model 3 pre-orders. So far only 260 Model 3s have made it out the door.
The company also announced that its new production goals will be 5,000 vehicles per week by March of next year. This is half the total touted by Musk in his now legendary “production hell” quote when the Model 3 was launched this summer.
And although the company tried to tout a 138 percent rise in its energy storage units and work with humanitarian organizations in Puerto Rico, the market responded with a five percent decrease in Tesla stock prices.
