Sales up, revenue up, but still losing money: A Tesla story

Enlarge (credit: David Butow | Getty Images)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called the company “a drama magnet” compared to SpaceX, The Boring Company, or any of Musk’s other endeavors. Since the launch of the Model 3, the $35,000 vehicle in Tesla’s battery-electric lineup, that’s held true. Now in Q3, the company’s financial statement reflects more of that drama, good and bad. Wednesday night, Tesla posted another loss, greater than the one before it, but with revenues and sales hitting record highs at the same time.

According to numbers released today (PDF), Tesla posted a $671 million loss on total revenues of nearly $3 billion in the third quarter of 2017.

Compare that to 2017’s second quarter, where Tesla posted a loss of $401 million after total revenues of $2.7 billion.