The popular carmaker Tesla on Wednesday evening published its financial results for the third quarter of this year, which remained below the estimates of Wall Street. Although sales increased by nine percent year-on-year to 23.35 billion dollars (almost 548 billion CZK), analysts were expecting a figure of over 24 billion dollars.
Net profit for billionaire Elon Musk’s company fell 44 percent to $1.85 billion, and gross margin also fell. From a value of 25.1 percent a year earlier, it is now 17.9 percent.
The reason for weaker profitability is not difficult to ascertain. Tesla has slashed prices several times in the past few months to help boost sales at a time when interest rates have risen, the economy has slowed and competition in the electric car space has increased.
Tesla’s woes, according to business portal Barron’s, show that traditional automakers trying to build competitive electric vehicle businesses will have a hard time.
The head of Tesla Musk said about the results that “Tesla is an incredibly capable ship, but even a big ship sometimes has problems in a storm”. He also said on the conference call that he wants to get a better idea of where the economy is headed before going all-in on building a new factory in Mexico.
“If interest rates stay high … it’s going to be a lot harder for people to buy a car. They simply cannot afford them,” he said.
The title traded on the American technology exchange Nasdaq reacted to Musk’s words by falling by 4.78 percent to a price of $242.68 per piece.
At the same time, Musk’s car company confirmed its goal to deliver approximately 1.8 million cars this year. It also said that it will start delivering the first units of the Cybertruck electric pickup to the market this quarter.
