Has Tesla turned a corner?

Car maker has £7.3bn of debt It is burning £650 a second But production finally ramps up

ELon Musk’s Tesla shocked stock markets last night as revenues jumped ahead of expectations.

Shares in the electric car maker surged by 3pc in afterhours trading as it revealed sales of £ 2.5bn in the first three months of the year. Analysts had expected sales of £2.4bn for the first quarter.

Losses were also lower than expected at $3.35 per share as opposed to $3.58. net losses were £578m in total.

Tesla produced 2,270 of its flagship Model 3 cars per week, with the company saying that it would be back in the black if it could reach 5,000. It believes it should do this by the middle of this year.

In its best-ever quarter for orders, Tesla ended the first quarter with reservations for the Model 3 exceeding 450,000.

Musk ( picturedrightwiththe

Model 3 car) said: ‘ Model 3 is already the best- selling electric vehicle and, more importantly, on the cusp of becoming the best-selling premium sedan in the US. The path to an electrified revolution is not easy, but what we’re trying to achieve is worth fighting for.’

It came amid mounting speculation that Tesla may have to raise more cash because of its £7.3bn debt pile and the cost of ongoing production delays.

But Tesla said it will reduce its capital expenditure from £2.5bn to £2.2bn for the year.

The results come after a tough period for the firm, which has struggled to get the Model 3 off the production lines quickly enough. It is the first car made by Tesla to be aimed at the mass market, with a starting price of £26,000, and is crucial to the company becoming profitable. But production has lagged behind target. Musk originally claimed Tesla would be producing 5,000 of the vehicles each week by the end of last year – when in reality it has only just reached 2,270.

Musk has blamed the delays on ‘production bottlenecks’ and last month even started sleeping at the company’s factory in California to keep an eye on manufacturing.

overall Tesla said it made 34,494 cars in the first quarter. This included 9,766 Model 3s and 24,728 of the more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles.