The company to revolutionise electric cars in an era dominated by the conventional car lobby, Tesla Motors, has posted their first-ever quarterly profit in the last quarter – Q3 2018. While many experts had expected a loss and a very few pointing towards marginal profits, the $311.5 million profit has beaten all estimates. Founder and embattled CEO, Elon Musk, has said that he expects Tesla to remain profitable henceforth and is positive about expanding to the European and Chinese markets.
Tesla’s success story has been driven by Model 3, the cheapest Tesla yet, but the one that costs $50,000 (approx. Rs 35 lakhs). Tesla has managed to overcome the production issues and challenges to build about 4,300 cars every week in the last quarter, inching closer to Musk’s target of 5,000 cars a week. Improvements in production efficiency have resulted in about 20 per cent margin on Model 3 which has resulted in the overall profit in Q3 2018.
Tesla’s mounting debt due to continuing losses and Elon Musk’s atypical behaviour has had the investors worried about Tesla’s future. Musk, who is also the CEO of SpaceX, seems to have allayed fears with his balanced reaction after turning profitable. Musk said that the company has turned profitable without stemming investments in future product development which includes the Model Y and the new-gen of the Tesla Roadster along with the electric-semi truck and other commercial vehicles. Tesla is also positive about getting the China plant up and running by 2019 to expand to cater to the global demand for Teslas.
