Tesla’s 4Q net loss doubles but shares up on outlook

Tesla may have fallen considerably this year, but is still overvalued and is only a stock for risk-loving investors. Government policies supporting electric vehicles in the region are finally working to the benefit of Tesla and this may help the company make headway into the market. Global deliveries rose about 76 percent year over year in the quarter.

The thing is that General Motors potentially has the opportunity to beat Tesla to the punch in rolling out an affordable electric vehicle, as the carmaker has plans to ship out the Chevy Bolt sometime before 2016 ends.

Tesla Motors (TSLA) announced very strong results for the final quarter of this year. As Bloomberg points out, the USA federal tax for electric vehicles won’t last forever, saying that the value will go down to zero in about a year and a half.

Investors also weren’t happy with the slow ramp-up of Tesla’s new Model X SUV. As with the Model X, we should then start to see test “mules” on the road in 2017, if Tesla hopes to launch the Model 3 in the third quarter, as it did with the Model X. “I do think that there was some hubris there with the Model X“. CEO Elon Musk and his team will join analysts on a conference call later in the day. Overall, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based automaker produced just more than 50,000 vehicles previous year, and is said to be tracking well behind the 80,000 to 85,000 quarterly production number it needs to stay on pace to reach its yearly production goal in 2020. And if Tesla doesn’t deliver a Model 3 on time, the Bolt could snap up some of the electric-car company’s customers. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters prior to the earnings report expected the company to eke out a slight gain of $3.9 million and a loss of 1 cent per share. “China doesn’t really have a big effect on Tesla yet”, Musk said, adding that he sees Mexico as the biggest emerging growth market for the company right now. The Model 3, “is on schedule to be unveiled on March 31st and to start production and deliveries in late 2017″. The Model 3 is expected to offer at least 200 miles of range, and to be roughly 20% smaller than the Model S, with fewer luxury features. It reported an operating loss of $114 million, or 87 cents a share. The same period saw 208 Model Xs get delivered. According to the firm, around $1.5bn will be spent in 2016 as a whole, on production machinery for the Model 3, Gigabattery cell production – some of which will power the new auto – and around 80 new retail and service centers.