Tesla: margin improves, blames flat volume on battery supply

Tesla returned to positive free cash flow in the third quarter, US$1.5bn, following a rare instance of cash burn in Q2. However, the intense increase in operating expenditure that precipitated the previous result hasn’t abated: R&D for AI (now called ‘Super Intelligence’ in Tesla’s earnings deck) grew 69% to US$2.76bn, while selling and admin costs rose 29% to more than US$2bn