“I think there is just a lot going on that you would find interesting,” said Elon Musk as he started the Q3 earnings call for Tesla Inc.
“This was an incredibly stark quarter for Tesla. Model 3 production stabilized. We delivered a total of 84,000 vehicles globally, which is more than 80% of the vehicles that we delivered in all of 2017.
“In fact, we delivered more cars in this quarter than we did in all of 2016,” continued Musk.
The - of late controversial - CEO of Tesla Inc went on to say: “Model 3 became the best-selling car in U.S. in terms of revenue and the 5th best-selling car in terms of volume.
“We saw higher revenues and significantly better profitability in our Energy business. I mean, but I think with solar, it may have been the best quarter ever for solar.
“We achieved GAAP net income of over $300 million, increased cash and equivalents by $731 million and achieved a greater than 20% gross margin for Model 3.
“And moreover, we expect to again have positive net income and cash flow in Q4. And I believe our aspirations I think it will be for all quarters going forward.
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“I think we can actually be positive on cash flow and profitable for all quarters going forward, leaving aside quarters where we may need to do a significant repayment, for example in Q1 next year.
“But I think even in Q1, I think we can be approximately flat in cash flow by end of quarter.”
The rollout of Tesla’s most advanced Autopilot feature ever, Navigate on Autopilot was also announced during the call.
Said Stuart Bowers, VP Engineering at Tesla: “ Yeah, the team has done an incredible work here and by bringing up more of the cameras around the car we can detect things as they come toward us, not just directly in front of us.”
Replying to reporters on Chinese production plans, Musk said: “We're definitely going to do local production in China. We're moving rapidly on that. So we're driving to have Model 3 production for the China market or the Greater China market active certainly next year.”
Musk concluded the call by encouraging the competition to invest more in their production lines: “The fact of the matter is we made the investment in the Giga factory and other companies didn't.
“And we put a lot of effort into having extremely efficient cars which the other... companies didn't. But sure, they will over time, but that's what has put us in quite a strong competitive position right now.”