Shares in Tesla Inc. rose more than 11% in late trading today after the electric car maker and energy company surprised investors with higher-than-expected earnings in its fiscal third quarter.
Chief Executive Elon Musk also said the company plans to launch more affordable models in the first half of 2025.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share of 72 cents, up from 66 cents in the same quarter a year ago, on revenue of $25.18 billion, up 8% year-over-year. Analysts had expected to see earnings per share of 60 cents on revenue of $25.4 billion.
Automotive revenue in the quarter inched up 2% from a year ago, to $20.2 billion. Energy generation and storage revenue jumped 52%, to $3 billion, and services and other revenue rose 29%, to $2.79 billion.
Over the quarter, Tesla delivered 462,890 vehicles, including 439,956 Model 3 and Y models and 22,915 in other models. Through to the end of the third quarter, Tesla has delivered 1.29 million year-to-date and expects to deliver slightly more vehicles by the end of the year than the 1.8 million it delivered in 2023.
Tesla also noted in an investor deck that the company had reduced the average cost of making a vehicle down to about $35,100. The company’s Cybertruck has also reached profitability for the first time, thanks to increased production and improving sales, with the truck now the third best-selling EV in the U.S., behind only the Model Y and Model 3.
Musk said to investors in an earnings that he expected vehicle sales to grow 20% to 30% next year, absent negative external events, aided by improvements in autonomous technology and the launch of new more affordable models.
Musk also revealed that Tesla has been testing its robotaxi service in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last few months.
The Verge reports that employees have been able to summon an autonomously operated Tesla vehicle for trips using the company’s prototype ride-hailing app. Though the vehicles arrive with safety drivers, they’re operating autonomously using the latest version of the company’s Full Self-Driving software, which Musk has previously said would be 1,000 times better than human driving by the second quarter of 2025.
Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com, noted that “the improving numbers across the board signal the company may have finally found a nice sweet spot for the pricing-versus-production-costs equation, which has been the main issue for stock performance since last year.”