e-mobility
Record quarter: Tesla’s earnings and sales above expectations
The Tesla logo on a vehicle in a Berlin showroom. The group can continue to shine with record figures. Photo: Christophe Gateau/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Elon Musk is making headlines with Twitter takeover plans, while business is booming at his electric car manufacturer Tesla. At the beginning of the year, there were new record values for profit, sales and deliveries.
Despite global supply chain problems and pandemic-related production disruptions in China, the US electric car manufacturer Tesla set new records for profit and revenue at the beginning of the year.
In the three months to the end of March, sales increased by 81 percent year-on-year to $18.8 billion (17.3 billion euros), as the group of star entrepreneur Elon Musk announced on Wednesday after the US stock market closed. Tesla earned a bottom line of $ 3.3 billion – that was 658 percent more than a year ago.
68 percent increase
The results were significantly better than expected on Wall Street. The shares initially rose by around four percent in after-hours trading. Although the global auto industry is suffering from persistent shortages of computer chips, for example, Tesla brought 310,048 e-cars to customers in the first quarter – an increase of 68 percent year-on-year and a new record. In March, the group opened its first car plant in Europe near Berlin. Production there, however, has to be really ramped up first.
Regardless of the strong numbers, Tesla warned of ongoing difficulties in the annual report. Global supply chain issues are likely to persist for the rest of the year, the company said in a letter to shareholders. In the past quarter, Tesla also suffered from production outages at its car factory in Shanghai due to a Covid lockdown in China. Operations there have now started again, but Tesla has now announced that the situation must be monitored very closely.
$679 million in sales
Trading in pollution rights, which other car manufacturers need to improve their emissions balance, once again proved to be a lucrative business for the company. In the first quarter, Tesla had a turnover of 679 million dollars – more than twice as much as in the previous quarter.
Tesla’s bitcoin holdings have remained flat and were last reported at $1.26 billion. Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoins last year, but sold part of it a little later.