Tesla losses jump – but Powerwall orders hit $118 million in a week

Tesla’s losses for the first quarter of 2015 are three times those of 2014, but Tesla’s recently revealed Powerwall Home Battery Pack takes $118 million orders in a week.

Tesla managed to increase its revenues in the first quarter of 2015 by 50 per cent, improved production efficiency, doubled its R&D budget, took more orders, built 11,160 cars and increased its inventory by 1100 cars, but still managed to lose three times as much as it did in the same period in 2014 – $154 million.

Revenues of $940 million with costs of $680 million would, you’d have thought, leave enough to turn a profit, but Tesla doubled its R&D spend to $170 million and, somehow or other, managed to spend $195 million on marketing and admin.

Tesla also confirmed (again?) that the Model X SUV will go in to production in September, and that they expect to produce 12 per cent more cars in Q2 than in Q1, and are aiming for a total of 55,000 units (Model S and Model X) in 2015.

Away from Tesla cars, Elon Musk has revealed that the Tesla Powerwall home battery pack revealed just last week has already received 38,000 pre-orders which, by our reckoning, is at least $118 million of orders assuming a minimum price of $3,000 for the smaller pack.

Not only that, but they’ve also received 2,500 orders for the commercial version – the Tesla PowerPack – which starts at $25k and means at least another $62.5 million in orders.

There’s no way Tesla are going to be able to fulfil that level of orders until their new battery Gigafactory opens next year, but it’s a clear indication of the potential demand for a home power storage solution and could end up being a much bigger revenue stream for Tesla than its cars.