MarketWatch is doing the heavy lifting:
Tesla Inc. TSLA reports fourth-quarter results Wednesday after the bell and Wall Street is eager to hear details about the Model 3 and the mass-market sedan’s production timeline. Tesla’s results come as the stock has been on a tear, up 50% since early December as fears the company would be under pressure from the Trump administration faded. Tesla hopes to begin producing the the $35,000 all-electric Model 3 by June and delivering them by the end of the year. Wednesday’s report will also be the first for Tesla since it closed the acquisition of SolarCity. MarketWatch reporter Claudia Assis (@claudiaassisMW) and tech editor Jeremy C. Owens (@jowens510) will live-blog the release of the report and subsequent conference call, which is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Eastern time....MUCH MORE and more to come.
3:34 pm by Jeremy C. Owens/
Tesla once again did not update on how many reservations it has for Model 3. There is a total number for deposits customers have put down – $663,859,000 – but that likely includes deposits for Model S and Model X as well.
Tesla has not updated since saying that it received about 373K deposits of $1,000 apiece in a flurry right after it opened up the system for reservations. We don’t know if that number has increased with more reservations since, or if a substantial number of owners have canceled reservations and requested that money back. We’ll see if Elon discloses on the call.
3:30 pm by Claudia Assis
Wall Street is definitely happy with the results, wider loss notwithstanding — shares are up more than 2% now. Being on track with Model 3 seems to be doing wonders.
3:30 pm by Jeremy C. Owens
It does have an estimate on the increased spending I mentioned earlier: “We expect to invest between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in capital expenditures ahead of the start of Model 3 production.”
Nothing about a potential capital raise, but Tesla only has about $3.4 billion in cash on hand, so things could get dicey if Elon doesn’t go back to Wall Street for some more money.
3:29 pm by Claudia Assis
Tesla says it is on track with generating the half a billion dollars in cash and achieve the ‘cost synergies’ post SolarCity deal. The plan is to reduce customer acquisition costs by cutting advertising spending, selling solar products in Tesla stores, and shifting away from leasing solar-power systems.
Leasing was the backbone of the old SolarCity but in the past couple of years or so the company had already began shifting towards loans and other forms of ownership.
3:28 pm by Jeremy C. Owens
Tesla’s forecast for 2017 is cagey – nothing on full-year deliveries or revenue. Explanation:
Since even a couple-week shift in timing could have a meaningful impact on total deliveries and installs, we are focusing our guidance on the first half of the year....
