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…and the bad news is…Tesla reduces revenue forecast

Tesla’sunveiling of its new Supercharger was streamed online, with a light show and plenty of hoopla. Its announcement the next morning was a more subdued affair. The company said that Model S production has increased at a slower rate than anticipated, and that it is “approximately four to five weeks behind our previously announced Model S delivery goals as of the end of 2012.”

As of September 23, Tesla has built 255 units, and delivered 132. It estimates that it will build 300 in the third quarter, and ramp up to a rate of 400 per week before the end of 2012. The company still plans to reach its production target of 20,000 vehicles in 2013.

Thanks to the production bottleneck, which the company said was partly due to troubles with some of its suppliers, Tesla cut its 2012 revenue forecast to a range of $400-440 million, down from the previous figure of $560-600 million. The stock market predictably punished TSLA shares, which dropped about 10 percent to close at $27.66 on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, Tesla announced a follow-on offering of 4,344,930 shares of its common stock, a move that some analysts had predicted in August, when the company reported a massive quarterly loss associated with the expense of moving into production mode.

Tesla also announced that it has fully drawn down its $465 million DOE loan, and has reached an agreement with the department to push back some of its loan payments. A DOE spokesman said that Tesla has made all required payments to date.

 

Source: Tesla
Image: jurvetson (flickr)

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