Tesla achieves profitability
August 10, 2009 by Matt Brogan
Tesla, manufacturer of the exciting electric Roadster, has from Friday of last week achieved profitability for the first time.
The month of July saw the US company make $1 million in earnings on revenue of $20 million.
Tesla sold 109 Roadsters in July and the company has also reported a surge in new orders for its electric sports car.
“We achieved a bottom-line profitability thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work by the Tesla team to improve quality, while simultaneously reducing costs on the Roadster,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “This also shows that there is strong demand for a car that is unique in offering high performance with a clean conscience. Moreover, customers know that in buying the Roadster they are helping fund development of our mass market electric cars.”
The company also revealed it is “deep into the development” of the production Model S, which is expected to arrive at US dealerships in late 2011 or early 2012.
The profitability announcement marks the latest milestone in a chain of positive news out of Tesla when in May the company took a $50 million investment from Mercedes parent Daimler. In June, Tesla received approval for $465 million in loans from the US Department of Energy to fund construction of its Model S production facility.
CarAdvice will keep you posted on all future developments from Tesla.
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Will we see a globally distributed model soon? Or are they still U.S.A only?
To rain slightly on their parade, its $1million corporate profit, which is quite different to operational profit. A company could keep posting corporate profits by simply getting loans every quarter, eventually you’d go under with the pile of debt, but hey, you posted a profit. It includes both the 10% investment from Daimler and the $465million loan from the US government, so essentially they are still burning money at a huge rate, which is to be expected given their development costs at the moment.
Having said all that, its good to see investors are still interested in Tesla, given the economic downturn, hopefully with the downturn slowly recovering Tesla will get a lot more investment money and be able to transition to being operationally profitable.
“Tesla received approval for $465 million in loans from the US Department of Energy to fund construction of its Model S production facility.”
LOL
Reminds me of Tesla Coil inventer, Nicola, a bigger shyster you would not find…
Loan…yeah right, you can kiss that goodbye, all sent O/S to offshore accounts.
They will NEVER make a profit the price/quantity they are working with WON’T work, soon as the main players start with its electric-vehicle program [why bother?] Tesla won’t be able to compete.
You can see whats going to happen, the whole $$ lot is going to go pear-shape, into Chapter 11, all the money will be gone [Andorra Inc] and the owners will live happily ever after.
Its just history repeating over and over again…
Its good to see any positives next to an automotive at the moment. You have to take your hat off to Elon and the boys for getting this far. Even the Lutz admitted Tesla motors was one of GM’s reasons for pushing the Volt.
Daimler has taken a 9% stake in Tesla motors which shows good confidence. Whats concerning is of that 9%, a 4% percent stake has already ended up in the middle east…..scary…..
I doubt Tesla will be a major player in the future but will instead be trying to license their technology to others.
FredBishop is right. This whole thing is nothing but a scam.
The electric Delorean
The owner of tesla motors is already living happily ever after. Sold his paypal business too ebay for millions a few years ago and is now trying his hand at the auto business. Will he succeed? Who knows, but I doubt he is in this too try and screw people out of their money too live the good life. I wish tesla success for the future!
What ever you think of the company, Tesla have got the electric car that the big companies should be making instead of under done, so – so, self propelled shopping trollies.
because Tesla is embarassing the Auto Industry by producing a sexy electric car (instead of an exercise in uglyness) chances are a major car company will buy them out and bin them.