Tramway news: After the hours of EST on Wednesday, Tesla released a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report, showing that Tesla delivered 936172 vehicles in 2021, an 87% increase over the delivery volume of 499647 vehicles in 2020, achieving revenue of $53.823 billion, an increase of 71% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders reached $5.519 billion, an increase of 665% year-on-year.
Tesla said in its earnings report that 2021 is a breakthrough year for the company, and there should be no more questions about whether the production of electric vehicles can be profitable. Tesla believes that the supply chain is still a limiting factor affecting the company's vehicle delivery, and the supply chain restrictions may continue until 2022. For future delivery targets, Tesla maintained last year's claims, saying that in the coming years, the company expects the average annual growth rate of deliveries to reach 50%.
Musk said on the fourth-quarter earnings call that Tesla is looking for a location for a new gigafactory, which will be announced as soon as the end of this year. He revealed that this year's Tesla focus is to expand production capacity, the company is expected to easily complete more than 50% of the delivery volume growth, in order to maintain production capacity growth, Tesla will not launch new models this year, electric pickup truck Cyberruck, electric van Semi and sports car Roadster will be postponed to next year production and delivery.
Record delivery volume, gross margin of more than 30%
Thanks to the significant increase in deliveries, Tesla's overall revenue and net profit continued to hit quarterly and annual highs. In the fourth quarter, Tesla's revenue reached $17.72 billion, up 65% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders was $2.321 billion, up 760% year-over-year.
Tesla said the increase in profitability was due to the company's further reduction in production costs per vehicle, and despite a sharp rise in the cost of raw materials, goods and logistics, Tesla's vehicle business achieved a gross margin of 30.6% in the fourth quarter, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year, setting a new quarterly high for Tesla.
Tesla said that manufacturing is a key core competitiveness of the company, although due to the high price of power batteries, led to the widespread perception that electric vehicles are structurally unprofitable, Tesla believes that manufacturing innovation, specially built vehicles and factories will solve the cost problem.
In the third quarter of 2021, Tesla said the company achieved the highest operating margin of any batch OEM, with the cost per vehicle (COGS) falling to about $36,000 in the third and fourth quarters of 2021. Tesla said the projects the company is currently preparing, including large castings, structural battery packs, 4680 batteries and many other projects, will help Tesla continue to reduce production costs.
While Tesla deliveries have increased significantly, regulatory credit from carbon emissions trading has fallen year-on-year. Tesla's regulatory credit income for the full year last year was $1.465 billion, down 7 percent year-over-year, according to the earnings report. Regulatory credit has always been an important means of Tesla's profitability, and now with a significant increase in delivery, Tesla has shed its dependence on regulatory credit income.
In addition to reducing production costs, Tesla also hopes that the profits related to automotive hardware will accelerate with software-related profits. The software here mainly refers to Tesla's assisted driving Autopilot and full self-driving (FSD), and Tesla said that there are currently nearly 60,000 beta fully autonomous vehicles in the United States. Musk believes that the FSD will be completed by the end of this year.
In addition, Musk said that this year is expected to allow 80% of U.S. car owners to use the insurance provided by Tesla, and the insurance business is expected to go online in the European market. Last year Tesla launched a "real-time insurance" service in Texas, through the specific features of the vehicle, Tesla will evaluate the premium based on the actual driving situation of the owner, the average car owner can save 20% to 40% of the premium, the safest driver can save 30% to 60%.
Capacity continues to expand, with 4680 batteries coming soon
Fully expanding production capacity is the primary goal that Musk has set for Tesla at this stage.
Tesla said that in the fourth quarter of last year, challenges in the global supply chain, transportation, labor and other aspects limited the factory to achieve full capacity. The chip shortage that has long plagued the global auto industry will still exist and will ease in 2023.
Musk said that production has begun at two super factories in Texas and Berlin, Germany. Among them, the Texas plant has already started production of modelY and is about to start delivery; the Berlin plant began testing equipment last month, but it is still awaiting approval from the authorities before mass production. In addition, Tesla plans to maximize production at its california and Shanghai plants.
On the earnings call, Musk announced that this year will be the site for the next Tesla gigafactory, and the results are expected to be announced by the end of the year.
Musk is optimistic about full-year production, believing it will grow by more than 50% in 2022. This means that Tesla will achieve an annual production of more than one million vehicles for the first time.
Regarding the 4680 battery, Musk said that the structured battery pack has a certain amount of assembly every day, the Austin factory will also have a new car loaded with a 4680 battery pack every day, and the first model equipped with the 4680 battery may start to be delivered in the near future, perhaps at the end of the first quarter.
At the same time, Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said that the 4680 is not the "ultimate size" of the battery, such as the lithium iron phosphate battery, which is not specifically optimized for the 4680.
2022 is expected to see Tesla further expand its capacity layout, as Tesla wrote in this quarter's earnings report: "We believe that what plays a decisive role in the competition in the electric vehicle market is to increase production capacity through supply chain and expansion." ”