Tesla has published its quarterly report and sent the car into space

8 February 2018

Elon Musk continues to shock the audience

Over the last two days there have been two major events related to Tesla. First, it launched a car into space and then published the financial report for the fourth quarter of 2017. All in good time.

the Tesla Roadster in Earth orbit

Somehow Elon Musk (Elon Musk) in jest expressed the desire to send your cherry electric Tesla Roadster into space. What all is needed to do this, he already has: SpaceX launches rocket, a sports car out in the garage. Here are just a "little" rocket Falcon 9 is not suitable for this, so had to wait for the start of the test the larger Falcon Heavy.

No sooner said than done. 6 February 2018 20:45 UTC from launch pad LC-39A at Kennedy space center was made the first launch of the Falcon Heavy. As a test load was used that the Roadster Elon Musk. Its wheel planted dummy named Starman, the suit is developed by the engineers of SpaceX, on the screen of the entertainment system brought the words "don't panic!", and the player started the song Space Oddity by David Bowie.

Why the masquerade? Musk admitted that he did it "just so" and "to cause a public interest". With the second task he just did it.

Before starting the American billionaire was surprisingly modest. He said that his suit is even the scenario when the rocket explodes in the Earth's atmosphere: just not on the launch pad (in this case, the blast wave could damage expensive equipment space complex).

But everything went like clockwork. Falcon Heavy sure came off and aggressively picked up speed. After reaching the orbit fold the cargo module was opened, which allowed us to put a video of the Tesla Roadster in the background of our planet.

Was and blot. The Falcon Heavy is created on the Falcon 9 a similar principle, i.e. it uses a reusable stage. Two side of the accelerator did return to the platform. Their simultaneous landing looked very impressive, will be envied by the best Directors of special effects of Hollywood. But the Central unit to perform this trick did not work: reported problems with landing light from the two engines of the three. In the end, he fell into the water.

a Mixed results, quarterly report

The next day, Tesla released the latest quarterly report 2017. There was positive data and for the skeptics and the optimists.

On the one hand, the manufacturer reported record losses: they reached $675,35 million For comparison: over the same period in 2016, the net loss was $121,3 million in Other words, the company's losses increased 5.5 times.

On the other hand, revenue jumped from $2.28 billion to $3.29 billion (+ 44 %). While Tesla warns that the costs in 2018 may increase substantially.

One of the biggest problems last semester was retained, the rate of production Tesla Model 3 still lags behind that of the plans. For the fourth quarter was released only 1 of 550 copies, and it is almost three times smaller plans (4 100). In this situation, the company blames the suppliers.

Tesla intends to increase production to 2 500 cars per week by the end of the first quarter, and second semester weekly to collect the 5 000 Model 3 electric vehicles.

the do

Amid such rapid news investors literally did not have time to react. At the end of the sixth of February (day of launch of the Tesla Roadster in space) Tesla's shares were traded in the former borders. But the next day they added about 4 %. The final outcome of the eighth of February too early to sum up (trading session), but in the time of paper cheaper by 6 %.

Perhaps the launch of a Falcon Heavy with such an unusual cargo, and the publication of its financial reports with record losses coincided not just. Using a strong reaction to the success in space of Mask must have hoped to mitigate the effects of a disclosure of a not too pleasant outcome 2017. However, this is all speculation.

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