Electric violins

24 April 2019 By Antony Currie Follow @AntonyMCurrie

CEO Elon Musk’s 2017 lament about the Model 3 is taking wider hold. Demand has softened, the battery Gigafactory is underperforming, and capex and cash flow are falling. Yet Musk keeps promising new models and bumper sales, while changing tactics on the fly. The limbo can’t last.

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Tesla reported a first-quarter loss of $702 million after U.S. stock markets closed on April 24. Revenue of $4.5 billion was 37 percent lower than last year’s fourth quarter. The mean estimate of sell-side analysts, according to data from Refinitiv, pointed to the electric-car maker losing $119 million on $5.2 billion of revenue.

On April 22 Chief Executive Elon Musk outlined his plan to have 1 million autonomous-capable Tesla vehicles on the roads by the middle of next year. He also predicted the company will be producing 10,000 cars a week by the end of 2019 and will in 2020 add both the Model Y and the Semi truck to its line-up.

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