Tesla turns a profit and says it may hit 2020 delivery goals despite pandemic
Tesla turned a surprise profit in the first quarter of 2020 of $16 million despite factory shutdowns in China and the US, the company announced on Wednesday, and said it may still hit its goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles worldwide this year even in the face of the pandemic.
There are, of course, caveats to both of those statements. Tesla sold $354 million worth of regulatory credits in the quarter, a record for the company. And while Tesla said it has the capacity to beat that 500,000 delivery goal, the company admitted that it “remains uncertain how quickly we and our suppliers will be able to ramp production after resuming operations.”
While Tesla’s new factory in China is back up and running, the company’s main automotive plant in California has been shut down for all of April, meaning that the company’s second quarter results are likely to look a lot worse than the ones announced Wednesday.
To that end, shortly before the company announced the first quarter results, public health officials in the San Francisco Bay Area announced that they’re extending the shelter-in-place order for the region through May 31st. While some businesses are allowed to reopen, automotive manufacturing is still not considered to be an “essential business,” according to the revised text of the order.
Tesla resisted the shelter-in-place order when it was first announced in mid-March. The company said at the time, to both employees and local officials, that it was told by the Department of Homeland Security that it was deemed “national critical infrastructure,” despite the fact that other automakers were suspending their operations at the time.
Developing…
Tesla turned a surprise profit in the first quarter of 2020 of $16 million despite factory shutdowns in China and the US, the company announced on Wednesday, and said it may still hit its goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles worldwide this year even in the face of the pandemic. There…
