Tesla Swings to a Record Loss on Model 3 Delays

Tesla Inc. posted a net loss of $619 million in for July-September, its largest quarterly loss ever. The company earned $22 million in the same period last year.

Revenue for the quarter jumped 30% to $3 billion for the period, helped by a doubling of installations by its energy storage operations. Deliveries of the company’s pricey Model S and model X electric vehicles rose 5% to 26,200 units.

But production problems continue to hamper output of Tesla’s critical Model 3 electric sedan. Tesla says a major hurdle is a problem with its battery assembly line that has forced it to redesign part of process.

The carmaker is counting on the $35,000 vehicle, for which it has 500,000 pre-orders, to propel it from money-losing niche player to profitable mainstream carmaker. Tesla assembled fewer than one-fifth the 1,500 Model 3s it targeted for production in July-September.

Tesla had expected to achieve weekly output of 5,000 of the cars in December. Now it says it won’t reach that target until at least the end of March. The company hasn’t changed its full-year goal of building 500,000 EVs—most of them Model 3s—in 2018, or six times its output last year.