Tesla lost money, but not that much money

Tesla (TSLA) just reported Q1 results that were largely in line with expectations.

The electric car maker reported an adjusted net loss of $75 million or $0.57 per share, which was a bit better than analysts' expectation for net loss of around $0.60 per share. This is a big improvement from the net loss of $282 million or $2.13 a year ago.

Net revenue jumped 45% to $1.6 billion, which was in line with expectations. The company had a gross profit margin of 22%, which was a bit better than the 21% expected.

In April, Tesla announced that it delivered 14,820 vehicles during the first three months of the year (In Wednesday's earnings announcement, management revised this to 14,810). This included 12,420 Model S vehicles and 2,400 Model X vehicles. The results, particularly for the Model X, were disappointing. Management blamed a shortage in parts.

Shares are up around 5% since Wednesday's close.

'Hubris'

"The root causes of the parts shortages were: Tesla's hubris in adding far too much new technology to the Model X in version 1, insufficient supplier capability validation, and Tesla not having broad enough internal capability to manufacture the parts in-house," management said in an April 4 statement. "The parts in question were only half a dozen out of more than 8,000 unique parts, nonetheless missing even one part means a car cannot be delivered."

Management reiterated its expectation to deliver 80,000 to 90,000 vehicles during the year. For Q2, management expects Tesla to produce 20,000 in Q2, while delivering 17,000.

Update on the Model 3

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is encouraged by the pre-order activity for the modestly-priced, $35,000 Model 3.

"In the first week of taking deposits for Model 3, we received more than 325,000 reservations despite no advertising or paid endorsements," Musk said. "This implies about $14 billion in future sales, making the Model 3 introduction the biggest consumer product launch ever. Since then, reservations have continued to grow to surpass even our expectations."

"The overwhelming demand for Model 3 confirms that compelling all-electric vehicles have mass-market appeal," he noted. "We are on track to achieve volume Model 3 production and deliveries late in 2017."

Departures

Earlier on Wednesday, Tesla confirmed that two of Tesla's senior-most executives were leaving the company.

"A person familiar with the situation who isn't authorized to speak about the matter said the executive changes are linked to delays, glitches, and a recall that have bedeviled Tesla's Model X," Bloomberg's Tom Randall reported. "Tesla denied any connection between the departures and production problems with its SUV."

One of the execs leaving is Greg Reichow, Tesla's vice president of production.

"After being at Tesla for over five years and leading its production team for the past three years, Greg Reichow has announced his intention to take a leave of absence from Tesla so that he can have a well-earned break," a Tesla spokesperson told Bloomberg.

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Sam Ro is managing editor at Yahoo Finance

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