Despite the global chip crisis and delivery problems, the US electric car manufacturer Tesla earned more in the third quarter than ever before in a quarter. In the three months to the end of September, profits rose by 389 percent year-on-year to 1.6 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros), as the group of founder Elon Musk announced on Wednesday after the US market closed. Sales grew 57 percent to a record $ 13.8 billion.
The construction of Tesla’s European car factory in Grünheide near Berlin is proceeding as planned, according to the company. “We expect to receive the final approvals before the end of this year,” said the quarterly report. Actually, Tesla wanted to start production in Brandenburg as early as July, but bureaucratic discrepancies delayed the schedule. Tesla continues to assume that the first Model Y will roll off the assembly line before the end of the year.
“Overall, I’m very proud of what the team has achieved,” said Tesla CEO Zach Kirkhorn during a conference call on the annual report. The start of production is approaching both in Grünheide and in Austin, Texas, where another Tesla plant is being built. However, the manager warned that there were still major challenges ahead and that mass production would depend heavily on the currently difficult supply of components.
The quarterly figures of the electric car pioneer clearly exceeded the expectations of most analysts. Investors reacted cautiously, however, the share even fell slightly after the trading hours. Although the entire automotive industry has been groaning for months under the semiconductor shortage, shortage of containers, traffic jams at seaports and other bottlenecks in the supply chains, Tesla has coped with this relatively well so far. In the third quarter, the company sold a good 240,000 vehicles to its customers, around 73 percent more than a year earlier.
Car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer was impressed by the annual report, which already showed the third record quarterly profit in a row. “Tesla is bursting with strength and Grünheide has not even started,” said the industry expert. While Tesla’s profit margins rose recently, the importance of emissions certificates, which other automakers need to improve their emissions balance, fell again. In the most recent quarter, Tesla only had sales of $ 279 million; in the previous quarters, these revenues were much higher.