Tesla to Increase Number of Vehicle Deliveries by 70 Percent

Feb 15, 2015 09:00 AM EST | Matt Mercuro

In its latest shareholder letter, Tesla Motors said it expects to increase the number of vehicle deliveries by more than 70 percent in 2015.

Tesla delivered 9,834 vehicles during the fourth quarter of 2014, and built 11,627, a new company record. Production delays for the dual-motor P85D version of the Model S pushed back some deliveries to the first quarter of 2015, according to the letter.

"Our customers have now driven their Tesla vehicles over 750 million miles. We are looking forward to achieving significant milestones in 2015, in addition to seeing our customers reach the billion miles driven mark," the letter to shareholders said, which was signed by both Musk and Tesla Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja.

Tesla said it had more than 10,000 orders for Model S and nearly 20,000 reservations for Model X at the start of 2015.

The EV automaker said that over 30 beta versions of the X have been built and are being tested.

"Despite initial challenges in China, we remain convinced of the vast potential of this market and are concentrating our efforts on the cities we are in currently, before launching into new cities," the letter says, regarding reports of low Model S sales in China.

 "We now offer a turn-by-turn navigation option in China that we provided retroactively through a remote software upgrade to all our customers with appropriately optioned cars, and we believe our new executive seats and second row center console will be quite popular with new China customers."

It's not all good news for the Model S maker. Tesla also reported a loss of $107.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2014. The company said it had a loss of 86 cents per share. Losses were 13 cents per share when adjusted for non-recurring costs and stock option expense, according to the company letter.

Company results fell well short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 25 cents per share, some expected earnings of 30 cents or more, according to Forbes.

Tesla is busy developing the Model X's successor, the Model 3, which is intended to be an entry-level Tesla vehicle with a 200-mile range and a starting price of $35,000, before government incentives. Deliveries are expected to take place in 2017. 

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