Published - October 20, 2022 @ 4:41 PM (EET)

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After the bell Wednesday, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) reported its highly-anticipated third-quarter earnings, in which the company addressed a broad range of questions, including Chief Executive Elon Musk's pending Twitter takeover.

During the report, the company said it expected to miss its vehicle delivery target this year as it adjusts vehicle-shipping patterns but downplayed worries about weakening demand for its vehicles amid recession fears.

QUARTERLY DETAILS

Addressing investors' concern that buyers could be discouraged by higher prices and the weak global economy, Musk said demand in the fourth quarter remains excellent.

"We expect to sell every car that we make for as far into the future as we can see," Musk said and added, "The factories are running at full speed, and we're delivering every car we make and keeping operating margins strong."

Revenue came in at $21.45 billion, a 56% jump from the year-ago quarter, while net income doubled year over year before adjusting for extraordinary items.  However, the beat was still short of analyst projections of $22.1 billion.

The company said the strong dollar, higher raw materials, and logistics costs affected the results.

Chief Financial Officer, Zach Kirkhorn, said Tesla expects to finish the year just shy of its 2022 target of boosting vehicle deliveries by 50%.  With roughly 936,000 vehicle deliveries in 2021, Tesla would need to hand over more than 1.4 million this year to achieve this growth.

Meanwhile, strengthening Tesla's amount of cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet, free cash flow soared nearly 150% to 3.3 billion.

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING

When asked about regulatory approval for Tesla's advanced driving technology, Musk's remarks indicated that the company is not yet able to satisfy authorities that its cars can be driven without someone behind the wheel.

Elsewhere, Musk boldly speculated that the carmaker could one day be worth more than the combined value of Apple Inc's (NASDAQ:AAPL) $2.3 trillion and oil producer Saudi Aramco's $2.1 trillion.  Tesla's current market cap is under $700 billion.

Mentioning the pending acquisition of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), Musk said he was excited, even though he and other investors were overpaying for the social media company. 

Lastly, Tesla plans to deliver its first electric semitrailer trucks in December and reiterated its objectives for the long-awaited Cybertruck pickup to enter production next year.

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