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NEWS
Popular Model S drives Tesla's first profit
Business is booming for Tesla in its home market – which means it won't be booming Down Under any time soonIf all the news is to be believed, the Tesla business model is falling into place with remarkable neatness. Home market sales of its Model S sedan rocketed in the first quarter of this year, with 4750 sales sufficient to see off Benz’s S Class (3077), BMW’s 7 Series (2338) and Audi’s A8 (1462), not to mention the Chevrolet Volt (4244) and Nissan’s LEAF (3539).
It was enough, indeed, to see Tesla post the first quarterly profit in its ten-year history. Sales of $US562 million represented an 83 per cent rise from Q4 2012. The company admits this was bolstered by sales of $68 million worth of zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) credits, but the total package yielded a profit of $11 million.
What all this great news means Down Under is disappointment for those interested in getting their hands on a Model S in the short term. With all that buzz in the US pushing up its share price and giving it the elusive fillip every EV maker is desperate for, the company is pulling out all stops to build momentum.
Tesla now expects its US base to exceed 15K Model S units a year and more than 30K globally – 10K in Europe and 5K or more in Asia. It’s also looking at cutting the deposit figure from its current $US5000, and offering its own finance package. CEO Elon Musk is on record as saying this would open up access to 10 million American households, instead of the one million of current estimates.
All of which makes the local launch date vaguer than ever. Initially slated for Q3 this year, it’s already been pushed back to year’s end or early 2014. “We’re definitely looking into it,” Asia-Pacific retail development manager Kevin Yu told motoring.com.au in January. “At this point, though, we don’t have concrete plans to share.”
Requests for an update in the light of recent announcements have been met with a similar response. “We will start international delivery for Asia Pacific in the second half of this year,” Tokyo-based spokeswoman Atsuko Doi told motoring.com.au this week. “However, if customers make their reservations now, deliveries should start next year. That’s as much detail as we can offer for now.”
The only respite from any of this lies in a ramping up of production, currently limited to about 400 units a week. CEO Musk told investors at a teleconference last week that a “fairly significant increase” in build volume is on the cards, when conditions are right. “We haven’t started to push volume really hard yet, because you need to make sure your house is in order and the car is being made as efficiently as it can be [first],” he said.
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Written byJeremy Bass
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