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Elon Musk on a visit to the construction site of the new Tesla plant in Brandenburg
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ALEXANDER BECHER / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Tesla wants to deliver half a million cars by the end of the year: The US electric car company has made a profit for the fifth quarter in a row and has confirmed its ambitious annual targets.
In the three months to the end of September alone, Tesla recorded a net profit of 331 million dollars, as the company of tech billionaire Elon Musk announced after the US stock market closed in Palo Alto.
Tesla thus increased its earnings by 131 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Sales grew 39 percent to $ 8.8 billion, a new record.
Tesla clearly exceeded expectations, the stock reacted after the hours with a significant price increase.
With the surprisingly strong quarterly figures, Tesla is expanding its series of successes - since it was founded in 2003, the company has never been profitable for such a long period.
Tesla also affirmed that it will continue to pursue its ambitious plan to deliver half a million vehicles in 2020, despite the burdens from the corona crisis.
In the first three quarters, almost 320,000 cars were delivered, 139,593 of them in the past quarter.
Towards the end of the third quarter, CEO Musk personally drove the workforce to record deliveries.
The capacities for the 500,000 cars are ready, said Tesla.
The annual target is more difficult to achieve, however, the company admitted with a view to the corona pandemic.
Model Y and production in Shanghai also played an important role.
Share price rose by almost 730 percent - in just twelve months
Tesla is currently building a huge plant in Grünheide near Berlin in Brandenburg.
The group is on track to be able to produce and deliver cars from there as planned in 2021, it says.
Environmentalists and residents fear negative consequences for nature and groundwater from the construction.
The environmental approval for the project by the state of Brandenburg is pending, but Tesla is building with provisional permits for individual construction steps.
The topic of water consumption in particular had recently become a problem.
Tesla has been the world's most valuable automaker on the stock exchange for some time.
Since the beginning of the year, the share price has risen by a good 400 percent, in the past twelve months by almost 730 percent.
Most recently, Tesla's market value was $ 394 billion.
This means that the e-car pioneer from Silicon Valley is trading more than three times as high as the two largest US manufacturers, General Motors and Ford combined in terms of market shares, despite much lower sales figures.
Tesla is also miles ahead of the German car companies in terms of market value.
For company boss Musk, who also runs the SpaceX rocket company and many other projects, the success should be a satisfaction.
For years his company had made losses and the future seemed uncertain.
Now Tesla has even set a record for operating profit - although the automotive market as a whole is suffering from the corona crisis.
"The third quarter was the best in our history," said Musk after presenting the financial report in a conference call with financial analysts.
Tesla is meanwhile continuing to vigorously push its international expansion.
In addition to expanding capacities in Shanghai and Grünheide, the group wants to quickly build another car plant in Austin, Texas, where the planned cybertruck will roll off the production line in addition to the Model Y compact SUV.
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