SAN FRANCISCO _ Tesla Inc. lost $674.9 million on $7 billion in sales last year and lost $121.3 million for the fourth quarter on $2.2 billion in sales, the company said Wednesday.
Annual revenue rose 73 percent thanks to 76,230 deliveries of the company's Model S and Model X electric luxury vehicles.
Given the company's grand ambitions and billions in capital investments required to achieve them, the losses were expected, although analysts differed widely on just how much the company would lose.
Tesla's earnings results, released after the markets closed, for the first time included SolarCity, the rooftop solar cell company Tesla bought in November. Because the numbers only include performance since the merger, they had little effect on the totals.
The company's stock was up $7.49, or 3 percent, to $281 in after-hours trading.
The company also announced that the new mid-market Model 3 is set for initial production in July and volume production by September. That may be the most important news of the day. Some investors and analysts were worried the Model 3 might be behind schedule.
Tesla said production has begun at its Gigafactory on battery packs for its cars and for electrical storage at homes, businesses and utilities.
The company intends to produce 500,000 vehicles annually by the end of 2018 and a million vehicles by 2020. Small buses, trucks and a small SUV may be added to the mix of products, the company has said.
Tesla had announced a rare profit for the third quarter last October, weeks before shareholders of both companies were to vote to approve the SolarCity merger. Critics said the profit was unsustainable; supporters said the results proved the company could produce positive cash flow on existing capital investments if it had to.
Tesla paid $2.1 billion for SolarCity in November. Since then analysts have wondered how SolarCity financial results will be reported. Cash flow is the key metric on everyone's mind. While the Model 3 and the battery packs are essential to Tesla's success, the cash SolarCity throws off or sucks up will enhance or detract from the entire effort.
However, on Wednesday Tesla said SolarCity results will be folded into its battery pack operations, making the solar unit's contribution to cash flow hard to figure.
SolarCity has always been considered a chancy proposition. Its stock was on a roller coaster when Tesla announced the planned merger in August.
While Musk makes a compelling case for an integrated energy company that directs the sun's energy through rooftop solar cells into storage batteries and then into electric cars, some investor critics saw the SolarCity purchase as a bailout for Musk himself.
Musk owned 22 percent of SolarCity shares. Mark Spiegel of Stanphyl Capital Management is in that camp. He is betting Tesla's stock price is in for a big fall. If Tesla gets into trouble, he said, SolarCity's business could be used to generate cash on current contracts as the business is slowly wound down.
Neither Musk nor Tesla have hinted at such a strategy.
