Tesla's Current Financial Statement

In December of 2016, Tesla sold roughly 190,000 electric cars on basis of all of their markets. Since it is a small market at the moment, every vehicle that Tesla has released have remained best selling electric cars across the globe (Toughnickel). The Tesla Model 3 has had over 400,000 pre-orders purely via their website. This speaks for itself as Tesla is going in a positive and successful direction. In financial statements from 2010, 2011, and 2012, there are net losses respectively sitting at -$154,328, -$254,411, and -$396,213 (Harvard Business Case). After researching their public financial statement from 2016 (Tesla.com), it is clear that Tesla is still losing money instead of profiting. I wanted to look at recent data as well as the

In Tesla’s IPO of 2010 shows that their price per share was $17; today it is approximately $325, nearly 20 times more than its starting price. It is important to look at the reasoning for Tesla’s overall net loss in recent years, separated from their company growth an unit sales. It is not because of growth, popularity, or product fail, it is because the company has put huge amounts of money into research and development to be able to cap out at the best possible growth track and production plan. Elon Musk stresses the importance of innovation and the future. Instead of worrying about the start-up year to year losses, Tesla is investing in what needs to be done in order to be extremely profitable and successful in the future; and hopefully accomplish the initial mission statement, “create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles”. The gap between an affordable electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf is becoming smaller and smaller as Tesla is able to reduce their costs and maintain the quality and unique technological traits. Tesla is expected to exceed in profits over their investments

The premium offerings are a narrow gap compared to the price to quality tag Tesla is asking. At around $35,000 - $61,000, you are able to reserve a Model 3 Tesla. The price gap puts Tesla at a Luxury description and therefore that is something that is holding them back from being the current industry leader. Although, the future is looking better for Tesla compared to Nissan’s electric car sales due to the capability limits that Tesla has pushed and already achieved. According to the case, the Tesla Model S can reach 0-60 mph in half the time of that of the BMW5 and Leaf, 1-2 times more horsepower, up to 4 times the range on a single battery life, higher capacity, a 99 of 100 consumer report rating, and a fantastic annual fuel cost per 15,000 miles. The only number that is lacking in the comparison is the price. I believe that the gap between Tesla’s current performance to desired performance is a relatively large one, but it does not mean it is non-achievable. Based on the numbers and future outlook of Tesla, I believe that Elon Musk and his team are headed greatly in the right direction despite the slightly negative financial