Tesla on track to deliver 500,000 cars despite Covid

Tesla smashed through Wall Street’s expectations as it released its thirdquarter results last night.

The electric car maker said revenue rose to a record £6.7billion from £4.8billion a year earlier — well ahead of the £6.4billion analysts had pencilled in.

And its profit hit £534million for the three month period, higher than estimates of £404million. 

Tesla, led by maverick entrepreneur Elon Musk, had already reported that it delivered 139,300 vehicles during the quarter — a record.

But if it is to meet its goal of delivering half a million cars in 2020 — a target it has stuck to despite Covid — it must send out more than 181,600 vehicles in the last three months of the year.

Tesla said last night that it would still meet the target, but that it was becoming increasingly difficult. 

But shares still jumped more than 2 per cent in afterhours trading as investors who were worried about Tesla’s ability to hit targets had their concerns eased.

Adam Vettese, an analyst at investment platform eToro, said: ‘Tesla’s skyhigh valuation will be causing some investors to worry. 

Paying a premium for a stock isn’t necessarily an issue but it does mean that the electric car giant will need to keep shifting through the gears if it is to avoid a share sell-off.’

The Tesla figures came after an update from Netflix disappointed investors. 

The streaming giant added 2.2m paid subscribers around the world in the three months to the end of September. 

That was the weakest growth rate in four years and compared with the 15.8m paying customers it gained between January and March as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to stay home.

Netflix shares almost 7 per cent – wiping £12.3billion off the value of the company. However, it was still worth more than £160billion having seen its shares rise more than 50 per cent this year.