Tesla Beats With Adjusted Revenue Of $1.2B, But Stock Drops 7% On Reduced Delivery Estimates

Update: Tesla’s stock price had briefly bounced back, but now is down again about 6 percent during the earnings call.

Today after the markets closed, Tesla reported second quarter financial results, including non-GAAP revenue of 1.20 Billion and non-GAAP loss per share of $0.48 cents. The street expected a non-GAAP loss per share of $0.60 on non-GAAP revenue of $1.17 billion.

Already announced about a month ago, the company delivered 11,507 cars this quarter, after delivering 10,030 in Q1. This quarter’s delivery number beat the company’s outlook, which was between 10,000 to 11,000.

However, the company reduced delivery guidance from 55,000 cars to “between 50,000 to 55,000 cars.” This is a reduction on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s goal of 55,000 cars delivered in 2015, which would be a 70 percent increase over 2014 deliveries.

In its shareholder letter, Tesla explained the estimate reduction:

We are still testing the ability of many suppliers to deliver high quality production parts in quantities sufficient to meet our planned production ramp. Since production ramps rapidly late in Q4, a one-week push out of this ramp due to an issue at even a single supplier could reduce Model X production by approximately 800 units for the quarter. Furthermore, since Model S and Model X are produced on the same general assembly line, Model X production challenges could slow Model S production. Simply put, in a choice between a great product or hitting quarterly numbers, we will take the former. To build long- term value, our first priority always has been, and still is, to deliver great cars. – Elon Musk, CEO and Deepak Abuja, CFO

The company also announced that it manufactured 12,807 cars this quarter, which is about 2.5 percent better than its guidance of 12,500. This number is a 15 percent increase from the 11,160 cars produced in Q1, and a 46 percent increase from a year ago. For the third quarter, the company is estimating it will produce just over 12,000 vehicles.

In regular trading the stock was up about 1.5 percent, closing at $270.13. The stock hit an all time of $291.42 in September of 2014, and after falling to $185 in March has risen back to near its all-time high.

After the earnings release, the stock is now trading after hours down 7 percent at $251.23.

Some other interesting news from the shareholder letter:

The company now has 487 Supercharger stations, and has increased deployments so a new Supercharger is now opening almost every 24 hours.

Tesla also said it is on track to start production of Tesla Energy products this quarter, with a further ramp up in Q4.

In other news out of Tesla today, Chris Evans, former head of Google’s Chrome Security team, tweeted that he will be joining Tesla to lead the security team. This announcement comes after recent security vulnerabilities at car companies like Chrysler and GM.

As is typical with Musk, investors will be listening closely to what he hints to on the earnings call at 5:30pm ET. We’ll update this post with more information when it comes out.

Disclosure: Author owns a small amount of shares in Tesla by way of a family trust.