Tesla burns cash and loses more than $4,000 on every car it sells

Business Insider ^ | 08/08/2015 | JOSEPH WHITE AND PAUL LIENERT, REUTERS

[SeekAndFind]

It's crunch time for Tesla Motors.

The Silicon Valley automaker is losing more than $4,000 on every Model S electric sedan it sells, using its reckoning of operating losses, and it burned $359 million in cash last quarter in a bull market for luxury vehicles. The company on Wednesday cut its production targets for this year and next. Chief Executive Elon Musk said he's considering options to raise more capital and didn't rule out selling more stock.

Musk has taken investors on a thrill ride since taking Tesla public in 2010. Now he's given himself a deadline, promising that by the first quarter of 2016 Tesla will be making enough money to fund a jump from making one expensive, low-volume car to mass-producing multiple models and expanding a venture to manufacture electric-power-storage systems.

Tesla's shares fell almost 9% on Thursday and slipped another 2% on Friday as investors and analysts weighed the risks of Musk's ambitious plans for expanding Tesla's auto and energy-storage businesses. Tesla had just $1.15 billion on hand as of June 30, down from $2.67 billion a year earlier.

Automakers consume cash to pay for assembly-line equipment, including metal dies and plastic molds, as well as testing to meet safety and emissions standards. A typical new car can cost $1 billion or more to engineer and bring to market.

[DAC21]

I’m Surprised.it is only 4k. If not for the Fed and State rebates...............

[dearolddad]

This guy is taking investors, taxpayers and buyers for a ride. I guess, though, it is an “electric” ride.

And the end of govco's handouts "electric" ride could be shocking

[factoryrat]

Things that china has, that musk and the US DOESN'T have:

Raw materials.

Endless supply of low cost labor.

Endless supply of engineers and technicians.

The largest manufacturing base in the world.

A business friendly government.

A pro-manufacturing government.

An export friendly government.

I have literally given up on trying to get anything useful out of US based suppliers and businesses. The chinese companies will work with me. The US companies, assuming I can even find one that makes what I need, are so fucked up from I don't know what, that they don't even return a simple RFQ. It's like they want to go out of business.

I've had it. Foreign nations are kicking our asses for a really good reason, because they want the work, and we don't!
.