Tesla's per-car loss rises to $19,810 up from $15,975 in prior quarter

With its September 2015 quarter report, Tesla broke a new record managing to lose more money per car sold in the September quarter than in any of the quarters last year.

The loss per car stood at $19,810, up from $15,975 in the prior quarter.

The negative free cash flow too was higher at $51,344 per car sold in the September 2015 quarter, up from $48,966 in the prior quarter.

However, the stock was up approximately 10 per cent in the immediate reaction to the earnings report and conference call.

One of the reasons for the uptick in the stock according to analysts is a genuine positive outlook for fourth-quarter deliveries.

Additionally, Tesla would be selling cars from inventory. According to Tesla's shareholder letter, it would be producing 2,000 fewer cars than it will sell during the quarter.

Meanwhile, with Tesla expanding its product offerings and the speed at which it made them, it was increasingly bringing manufacturing in-house, with the Model X's second-row seats being the latest.

Chief executive officer Elon Musk told investors in August it was difficult to make the seats, which he described as a ''sculptural work of art, but a very tricky thing to get right.''

The  seats posed such a huge challenge that they led him to cut the electric-car maker's delivery forecast that month to as few as 50,000 from 55,000, which set off a wave of scepticism over his ambitious plans.

''We have substantially in-sourced the seats at this point,'' Musk said yesterday during the third-quarter earnings call with analysts. ''Tesla is producing its own seats.''

Musk had believed in doing things on his own as much as possible.

He is building the world's largest battery factory outside of Reno, Nevada, to streamline production and cut costs to bring a more-affordable car - the Model 3 - to market.

When an analyst asked Musk about the massive costs of the automotive industry, Musk said that Tesla was becoming more capital-efficient.

''We believe that companies add value by doing hard things,'' said Musk. ''Not outsourcing those hard things to other people, because then they deserve the value.''