Tesla Brings Home Record Q1 Sales, Waiting For a Profit

Elon Musk's Tesla sales picking up, but the company is still bleeding money

Tesla's record first quarter comes with sales numbering 10,030 and a celebratory sales ban from West Virginia. Today, the House of Musk (Elon, that is, not body odor) said sales during the past three months were its highest ever, adding that it saw a 55-percent year-over-year increase. Tesla also said it would release sales three days after each quarter instead of waiting 40 days to publish them in its required 10-Q SEC filings, although it still refuses to give out monthly sales numbers like every other publicly-traded car company.

So where does Tesla Motors go from here? The company expects to sell 55,000 cars this year, including in that number sales of the still-not-on-sale Model X that is still running about prototype guise. That 55K figure is way, way up from the 31,000 cars Tesla moved last year. Since Model S production began in July 2012, the company has sold 66,798 of the electric sedans worldwide through March 31. Only 1350 vehicles were purchased on a lease last year; the rest were straight cash or finance.

None of that happy talk – nor the $216 million in zero-emission credits Tesla sold to rival automakers has helped Tesla net an actual profit. Last year, Tesla lost $294 million, compared to $74 million in 2013 and $396 million in 2012. Shares closed today at $191, down 13 percent since the start of the year and several elevator flights below September’s record high of $291.

We’ll get a fuller financial picture when Tesla files its first-quarter report in mid-May, but in the meantime, you can bet the company is busy working to bring the Model X to market and studying ways to capture those evasive profits. CarAndDriver