Header image source | tesla
Founded 18 years ago, Tesla finally experienced the happiness of mature car companies.
On January 27, Tesla announced the fourth quarter of 2021 and the full year of the financial report. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 65 percent year-over-year to $17.72 billion, higher than analysts' estimates of $16.57 billion, the data showed. Net profit was $2.321 billion, up 760% from $270 million in the year-ago quarter. Among them, Tesla's automotive business revenue was $15.97 billion, an increase of 71% year-on-year.
From the full year's data, Tesla's total revenue in fiscal 2021 was about $53.7 billion, an increase of 71% year-on-year; net profit was $5.519 billion, compared with $721 million in the same period in 2020, an increase of 665% year-on-year.
This is the 10th consecutive month that Tesla has achieved positive profitability, and various financial indicators have reached new highs for many consecutive seasons. Faced with the strongest annual report in history, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said nothing important and no longer attended the conference call, is back.
In fact, as early as November 2021, Musk "released" on social media that he would disclose the "updated product planning roadmap" at the Q4 earnings meeting, which also triggered various speculations from the outside world.
"Tesla is not going to launch a new car this year." On the call, Musk stressed that this year's focus is on expanding production. This means that for Tesla, 2022 will be a product gap period, and achieving scale effects and improving profits are the top priorities.
Electric vehicles are more profitable than fuel vehicles?
In its earnings report, Tesla summed up the past year with "breakthroughs" and said that "the profitability of electric vehicles can be stronger than that of fuel vehicles." "The reality is that with the sharp increase in car sales, Tesla has successfully achieved financial transformation, gradually saying goodbye to the sale of points to make a profit, and instead relying on selling cars to support the family."
In 2021, Tesla delivered 936,000 new vehicles in the whole year, an increase of 87% year-on-year. Fourth-quarter production increased 70% y/y to 305,800 units, with the Model 3 and Model Y remaining the main force, with combined production of the two models up 79% y/y to 292,700 units.
That also brought Tesla's fourth-quarter revenue from the automotive business to $15.967 billion, up 71 percent year-over-year, with $314 million coming from the sale of carbon credits, a 22 percent year-over-year decline.
Source: Tesla
While revenue expansion and scale effect continue to play a role, Tesla is also constantly compressing the cost of bicycles, and its gross profit level will also leave a number of car companies far behind.
Automotive gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2021 was US$4,882 million, an increase of 118% year-on-year. Total gross profit was $4,847 million and overall gross margin was 27.4 percent, up from 26.6 percent in the prior quarter. In contrast, in the third quarter of 2021, the gross profit margins of the three companies of "Wei Xiaoli" were 20.3%, 14.4% and 23.3%, respectively.
In the same period, Tesla's bicycle cost has been reduced to $36,000, and the gross profit margin of bicycles has reached 30.6%, which is basically the same as 30.5% in the third quarter. It can be expected that with the advancement of large castings, structural battery packs and other projects, future costs will continue to decline.
Specific to the model, Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn said that the Model Y's profit margin is higher than the Model 3, and the improvement of localization of the Shanghai Gigafactory has also helped improve the profit margin. "In the future, the software business will be the focus of profitability because the profit margin of the software business is very high. When FSD and Robotaxi finally appear, it will really manifest itself. ”
While the automotive business grew, revenue from the power generation and storage businesses fell 8 percent year-over-year to $688 million, lower than Wall Street's forecast of $815 million. This is the lowest income in the sector since the first quarter of 2021. Revenue from services and other businesses was $1,064 million, up from $678 million in the year-ago quarter.
At the end of the fourth quarter, Tesla's cash and cash equivalents continued to increase, adding $1.5 billion to $17.6 billion in the fourth quarter. This represents an increase from $16,065 million in the third quarter of 2021.
Tesla said it was largely driven by $2.8 billion in free cash flow, partially offset by $1.5 billion in debt and financial lease repayments. Excluding financing for automotive and energy products, Tesla's total debt fell to $1.4 billion at the end of 2021.
Maintain a delivery growth rate of 50% in 2022
Judging from Musk's sales target of 20 million vehicles by 2030, the start of production of the new factory is still the key to Tesla's growth story. On the earnings call, Musk said that this year will be the site for the next Tesla Gigafactory, and the results are expected to be announced by the end of this year.
Tesla currently owns two gigafactories in Shanghai and Fremont, California. The former has more than 450,000 Model 3 and Model Y production capacity, while the latter has a capacity of 600,000 vehicles, including 500,000 Model 3 and Model Y.
In 2021, the Shanghai Gigafactory achieved annual deliveries of 484,100 units throughout the year, accounting for 51.7% of the total deliveries. At the same time, it is also Tesla's main export center.
Two plants in Austin, Texas, and Berlin, Germany, are also about to start operations. According to the plan, Tesla Cyberruck will be produced at the Austin plant, where the first model to go into production is the Model Y, followed by the Cybertruck.
At the same time, the Berlin Gigafactory has also started testing equipment in the production process of the vehicle at the end of 2021. After obtaining manufacturing permits from local authorities, Tesla will begin delivering German-made vehicles in Europe. It is worth noting that the first vehicles produced at the Berlin plant will still use the 2170 battery instead of the latest 4680 battery.
For Tesla, the threat of supply chain shortages has not been completely eliminated. "We expect to remain limited by chip shortages this year." Musk said that due to supply chain constraints, Tesla factories have been under low load for many consecutive months, and this situation may continue this year and will ease in 2023.
Even so, Tesla expects vehicle deliveries to grow at an average annual rate of 50 percent over the next few years. For this goal, Musk said that in 2022, it will be easy to achieve this goal with only the Fremont and Shanghai factories.
The market is also optimistic about it. On Jan. 25, moody's, an international rating agency, upgraded Tesla's debt rating by two notches from "Ba3" to "Ba1." In the report, Moody's said Tesla's outlook remains positive and expects it to deliver nearly 1.4 million vehicles in 2022.
There is currently no $25,000 Tesla
Even if sales can be expected, from its planning point of view, Tesla in 2022 is still in the product gap period.
For the much-talked-about electric pickup, Cyberruck, Tesla chose to jump tickets again. As for its specific mass production time, Musk only gave the ambiguous answer of "I hope next year can". He explained that due to supply chain problems, the mass production of Cybertruck had to be postponed, and the output would be greatly limited.
Cybertruck first appeared at the end of 2019, when Musk said he would start mass production in 2021, but it has not yet been achieved. In January this year, overseas media exposed spy photos of Cyberruck's mass-produced version of the model. Compared with the previous concept car, the new car has reduced the ratio between the front and body, and added foldable rearview mirrors and a single-piece wiper.
In November 2021, Electrek reported that Tesla had a backlog of more than 1.2 million Cyberrocks, worth more than $80 billion, but there was no clear scheduling plan.
Musk explained on the conference call that batteries may not be a limitation for Cybertruck, but there are a lot of new technologies in it that will take some time to complete. In addition, its price must also be reasonable, so it is also necessary to control the cost of batteries. He said the current goal is to produce 250,000 Cyberrocks a year.
Faced with Tesla, which has no new car plans and Cybertruck frequently skips tickets, competitors have also accelerated the pace of seizing the market. In October 2021, the American electric vehicle company Rivian began deliveries of its first model, the R1T, which also made it the first car company to deliver electric pickup trucks.
Source: Rivian website
In early January, Ford announced that it would nearly double the capacity of its electric pickup truck F-150 Lightning to 150,000 units per year, and officials said the car has received nearly 200,000 orders.
Moody's pointed out in the research report that as more and more automakers release more competitive pure electric vehicles, Tesla's profit margins may be under pressure from 2023.
As for the rumor that Tesla will launch a "$25,000 model", Musk also gave a negative answer on the conference call. He said there is no push to develop a $25,000 electric vehicle and that no new cars will be launched this year. "We have enough to do now."
Musk said that many auto parts are shared, especially chips, and cannot get more supply. "Launching any new car will not be good for delivery." In its view, Tesla needs to go all out to expand production capacity and focus on achieving true autonomous driving, reducing transportation costs by 4-5 times.
For achieving full self-driving, Musk expects Tesla's cars to achieve full self-driving this year. "I'd be shocked if we can't achieve fully autonomous driving this year that's safer than human driving."
The author | Qin Zhangyong
Edit the | Wang Yan