Tesla CEO Elon Musk: ‘We continue to believe that the energy business will ultimately be as large as our vehicle business’

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Tesla reported its third-quarter results after markets closed on Wednesday and added another profitable quarter to its streak — with GAAP net income of $331 million on revenue of $8.77 billion. That’s the company’s fifth straight profitable quarter.

The company built a record 145,036 cars in Q3 and delivered 139,300 EVs — beating Wall Street expectations. Now the analysts will be looking to see if Tesla can meet its confirmed 2020 delivery target of 500,000 vehicles.

Solar strategy working?

Tesla’s recent strategy of quoting low-cost solar (a claimed $1.49/watt in the U.S. after tax credit) might actually be bringing in customers. After an abysmal 27 MW in Q2, Tesla’s total solar deployments more than doubled in Q3 to 57 MW. The company claims that its solar roof tile deployments almost tripled.

The company noted in its earnings presentation, “While not yet at scale, we recently demonstrated a ~1.5-day Solar Roof install…We continue to onboard hundreds of electricians and roofers to grow this business.” We featured a time-lapse of a 5-day Tesla roof install here. We covered Tesla’s low price strategy here.

Here are the storage and solar numbers from today’s earnings report.

Tesla’s energy storage group hit record deployments of 759 MWh in Q3.

Musk claims, “Powerwall demand remains strong and is growing, particularly as our solar business grows as many customers include a Powerwall with their solar installation.”

Musk added that concerns with grid stability, particularly in California, are also driving the storage business. He said, “We continue to believe that the energy business will ultimately be as large as our vehicle business.”

Tesla stock was up about 3% after hours as the EV pioneer beat expectations on EPS and revenue, and reported another profitable quarter — while maintaining its 500,000 vehicle delivery target.

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