Tesla has quickly turned to vehicle profitability
Earned nearly $10,000 per car last quarter
Tesla has figured out how to turn a profit, and despite the company CEO’s latest turmoil it’s a big one. Eight times the per-vehicle profit of Toyota, according to a new report from Japan.
Tesla reported that it made $3.29 billion in profits in the third quarter of this year, says Nikkei Asia. Toyota’s profit, still not a small figure, was $3.15B when converted to U.S. dollars for the same period. That’s despite Toyota selling more than seven times the number of vehicles that rival Tesla moved in the same period.
Toyota was able to move 2.62-million vehicles in the quarter, while Tesla sold just 344,000. Tesla’s multiple price increases so far this year, as well as higher prices for the still not-available Full Self Driving feature have helped boost the company’s per-vehicle revenues.
Tesla’s difficult move to sell vehicles directly instead of through dealers – a move that has made sales in some states near-impossible – has also helped to boost profits when compared with other automakers.
While Toyota’s operating profit, at $4.08B was larger than Tesla’s $3.69B, it shows that Tesla has quickly moved from being unprofitable to being one of the most profitable automakers in the world. The company’s net profit didn’t measure up to Mercedes-Benz, but it did outearn BMW as well as Volkswagen.
Toyota is hoping to catch up with Tesla’s dominance of the EV market, with a goal of 3.5 million EVs per year by 2023. However, it has only the bZ4X EV on sale today.
