Tesla logs 5th straight profitable quarter, breaks delivery record

San Francisco: Elon Musk-run Tesla registered its fifth straight profitable quarter, raking $331 million in profit in its third quarter, delivering 139,300 vehicles. The electric car-maker generated $8.7 billion in revenue.

The company beat the previous record of 112,000 vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter last year.

Tesla also produced 145,036 vehicles during the third quarter — a huge increase over the 82,272 vehicles that were made during the second quarter this year amid pandemic.

“We’re making progress on the three major factories. We’re continuing to expand Shanghai significantly, which is going incredibly well at Tesla China team,” Musk said during the earnings call.

“And then we’re under construction in Berlin and Texas and Austin. So we’re also making good progress there. I should make a point that for Berlin and Austin, we do expect to start delivering cars from those factories next year”.

Tesla’s cash balance increased to $14.5 billion, which includes free cash flows of $1.4 billion, its highest yet. It’s operating cash flows were $2.4 billion, including a $600 million benefit from working capital.

“We’re also aiming to achieve our original 2020 guidance of 500,000 deliveries despite the operational interruptions earlier in the year,” said Zachary Kirkhorn, Chief Financial Officer.

Musk said that he wants to make his cars more affordable.

“It is really important to separate out affordability from value for money. If the car is too expensive or any given product is too expensive, then people don’t have enough money in the bank account, they simply can’t buy it no matter what the value proposition is,” he noted.

“So it is important to lower the prices in order for people to literally just have enough money to buy it”.