Tesla just hosted its first financial call for 2018 and the numbers look grim: in 2017, the company reported a net loss of $2.24 billion. In comparison, Tesla only operated a net loss of $773 million in 2016. This means 2017’s net loss is almost 3 times higher than that of 2016. This large discrepancy was caused by issues during Model 3’s production. Although manufacturing difficulties plagued the new luxury vehicle, this didn’t come as a surprise to Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk.
Anticipating these issues since 2017, Musk used this financial call as an opportunity to make reassuring jokes to investors and the public alike: “We were in a deeper level of hell than we expected, a few levels deeper than we’d like to be. But [we’re] swiftly exiting, I think. If we can send a Roadster to the asteroid belt we can probably solve Model 3 production.” Tesla is currently on track to produce 2500 Model 3 per week by the end of March and plans to ramp up production to 5000 weekly units for the second quarter.
The Tesla Model 3 has a 215-mile range/charge and goes from 0 to 60 mph in under 6 seconds. It also includes autopilot capability and supercharging access. The base model goes for $35,000 and has a $1000 reservation payment. To read up on more of Model 3’s specs and pricing, check out our report here!
We thank Adam Jacob Stahlecker, part-time Hawkeye for poking us on our slips in the text (of course you can’t see them now as we made the needed corrections).
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