Earnings

Tesla shares climb as results beat Street

Tesla Powerwall sold out well into next year
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Tesla Powerwall sold out well into next year
Tesla doing well despite losing money
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Tesla doing well despite losing money
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Tesla adjusted loss better than expected
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Tesla Motors reported a quarterly loss and sales that were better than Wall Street's expectations on Wednesday.

Shares of the electric car maker rose 2 percent in extended trading. (Click here to track the stock.)

Tesla posted a first-quarter loss of 36 cents per share on $1.10 billion in revenue. Sales rose more than 50 percent from the year-earlier period.

Analysts expected Tesla to post a quarterly loss of 50 cents per share on $1.04 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

The company delivered 10,045 vehicles in the quarter, slightly higher than an estimate of 10,030 the company announced last month. Tesla expects to deliver about 55,000 cars this year, with deliveries for the Model X slated to start in the third quarter.

"There are huge advance orders for the X and we see a steady climb in demand for the S," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in the company's conference call after results Wednesday.

Tesla said it took a $22 million hit from revaluation of foreign currency holdings due to a stronger U.S. dollar. The company expects the dollar will affect Model S transaction prices in the second quarter, and it announced a 5 percent price hike in most European markets in the third quarter and later.

Tesla is preparing for volume production of its recently launched line of home and business solar-powered storage batteries in the third quarter. Production will "accelerate significantly" by the first quarter of 2016, Tesla said in a release.

Read MoreTesla launches batteries for homes, business and utilities

Tesla has received about 38,000 PowerWall battery reservations, Musk said in the call Wednesday. He called reaction to the product "crazy."

The batteries will cost $3,000 to $3,500 for installers.

A Tesla Model S P85d car is displayed at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 20, 2015.
Johannes Eisele | AFP | Getty Images

"By cornering the market on high-end batteries, Tesla has a huge asset and a value that I don't think can be easily be determined and it's a high value," said Ross Gerber, CEO and president of Gerber Kawasaki, in a CNBC "Closing Bell" interview on Wednesday. The firm owns Tesla stock for clients and family.

Tesla's planned "Gigafactory" in Nevada has the potential to produce 500,000 batteries by 2020, according to Musk.

Tesla shares have shot 13 percent higher in the last month.

Correction: Tesla lost 36 cents per share in the first quarter. That figure was misstated in a previous version of the article.

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