PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc. said Wednesday that its second-quarter net loss nearly doubled as it invested heavily to launch its second vehicle, the Model S.
Shares of the Palo Alto, Calif., company fell 3 percent, or 89 cents, to $28.95 before the market closed. They fell another 3.2 percent, or 92 cents, to $28.03 in after-hours trading.
The company said it lost $105.6 million, or $1 per share, from April through June. That compares with $58.9 million, or 60 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue was $26.7 million, less than half the $58.2 million reported in the second quarter of last year.
Excluding stock-based compensation expenses, the company lost 89 cents per share for the quarter. That beat Wall Street estimates. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of 93 cents per share on revenue of $30.9 million.
Tesla, the brainchild of PayPal billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, now has two all-electric models on the market, the $109,000 Roadster and the new Model S, which starts at $49,900 after a federal tax credit. The Model S went on sale last month, and Tesla said it had more than 11,500 reservations for the sedan by June 30.
Tesla has lost money since sales of the Roadster began in 2008, and the company is banking on the cheaper Model S to expand its market. Tesla began selling stock to the public in June 2010 at an initial price of $17 per share.
The company said it’s maintaining revenue guidance of $560 million to $600 million for the year, and it still plans to produce 5,000 of the Model S this year. It expects a gross margin of 25 percent next year and has a goal of 20,000 deliveries in 2013. Tesla also expects to be close to break-even in free cash flow in the fourth quarter of this year, the company said in a statement. It expects the profit margins to improve in the fourth quarter as sales increase and cost reductions and efficiencies kick in.
Tesla has received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to build its electric vehicles. The company said it has $33 million left to draw on the loan. It drew $71 million in the second quarter.
The company ended the quarter with $266 million in cash resources including the loan. It had $233 million in cash.
Research and development costs rose to $74.9 million during the second quarter from $52.5 million a year earlier as the company got ready to make the Model S. Tesla expects R&D spending to drop about 20 percent in the third quarter as Model S development expenses decline.
