Tesla stock drives higher as big bottom line beat overshadows margin concerns

Tesla shares rose sharply in Wednesday’s extended session after posting stronger than expected profits for the second quarter.The Austin-based EV manufacturer posted non-GAAP EPS of $2.27 and revenue of $16.9B. Analysts had anticipated $1.80 and $17.1B, respectively. The strong bottom line figure appeared to assuage some concerns about the “gigantic money furnace” gigafactories in Austin and Berlin weighing on that metric. Free cash flow also rose above estimates, hitting $619M against an expectation of $500M. While prices for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) vehicles are up 25% to 30% from a year ago, automotive margins compressed for the quarter to 27.9%. That figure falls below the 32.9% number that impressed in the first quarter and 28.4% notched in 2021. Having already reported a slightly disappointing delivery figure of 254,695 EVs for the second quarter, deliveries growth was projected to continue at a rapid pace from this slight slowdown."We plan to grow our manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible,” a slide deck released alongside the earnings results read. “Over a multi-year horizon, we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries.”Analysts had been optimistic on the metric despite understood troubles in China and supply chin pressures throughout the quarter. For example, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives had opined just days before the results that a 50% pace could boost the long-term EV demand thesis...