Author | Zheng Yue
Edit | Zheng Xuan
Musk pigeoned again, this time not pigeon earnings conference call, but pigeon new product.
In the early morning of January 27, Beijing time, Tesla released the fourth quarter of 2021 financial report, this quarter Tesla delivered 308,700 vehicles, an increase of 70.8% year-on-year, an increase of 27.9% month-on-month, exceeding the expectations of all analysts. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives even called the performance too good to be "jaw-dropping."
For the whole year, Tesla has delivered more than 936,000 vehicles, an increase of about 87% year-on-year, and the 1 million mark is about to break through. In contrast, the three new domestic car-making forces "Xiao Liwei" are difficult to match, and they are still attacking 100,000 vehicles.
The financial level is also eye-catching, Tesla's annual net profit exceeded $5.5 billion, most of which came from car sales, completely getting rid of the embarrassing situation of "selling carbon". In addition, even after repeated price cuts, the gross profit margin of Tesla car sales is still more than 30%, almost double the industry average, coupled with the shortened to a staggering inventory turnover cycle of 4 days - Tesla and Apple are becoming more and more similar.
Despite the bright performance of the financial report data, Tesla's stock price fell by 11% after the earnings report, superimposed on the recent "eagle" impact of the Fed's monetary policy, and Tesla's stock price has fallen by 21% since the beginning of the year.
Half a year ago, Musk publicly stated that "he will not be on the conference call unless there is something very important to say", and then Musk "kept his promise" and missed the Q3 earnings call in October. But musk attended the earnings report meeting, and the outside world speculated that he would announce the progress of the new product. As a result, Musk once again "pigeoned" a new product. This may be the direct reason for the decline in Tesla's stock price after the release of the earnings report.
01 Tesla, more and more like Apple
Let's start with the delivery data for the whole year. Tesla's total full-year 2021 deliveries were 936,222 units, exceeding the annual delivery target of 900,000 vehicles set by the shareholders' meeting, compared to approximately 490,000 vehicles in fiscal 2020. A year later, Tesla's deliveries have nearly doubled.
Specific to the model, the main model Model 3/Y delivered a total of 911,242 units throughout the year, and the domestic Model 3/Y delivered from the first quarter of 2021 greatly boosted Tesla's annual sales, and its performance in the Chinese and European markets was eye-catching. The Model S/X delivered a total of 24,980 units, a modest increase compared to previous years.
Tesla Model3、Model Y
High delivery drove Tesla's revenue to a new high. According to the financial report, Tesla achieved revenue of $53.82 billion in 2021, an increase of 71% year-on-year; net profit of $5.644 billion, of which net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was $5.519 billion, an increase of 665% year-on-year. Converted into about 34.76 billion yuan, rounded to 1 day net income of 100 million.
Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy said four major factors, including capacity increases, gross margins, new batteries and production plans, will affect the future growth trajectory of Tesla stock.
In the past two years, Tesla's main models have reduced prices more than a dozen times, and miraculously, the gross profit margin of car sales has not decreased but has risen. In Q4 2021, Tesla achieved a gross profit of $4.85 billion, an increase of 135% year-on-year, and a gross profit margin of 27.4%; of which the gross profit of the vehicle sales business was 4.65 billion US dollars, and the gross profit margin of vehicle sales reached a staggering 30.3%.
In terms of horizontal comparison among automobile companies, the gross profit margin of Toyota Motor Business in 2021 is an average of 19%, the average gross profit margin of Volkswagen Group with the highest sales volume is 17.5%, and the gross profit margin of luxury car companies such as Ferrari and Porsche is about 20%. Among the top three new domestic car-making forces, Ideal and Weilai have an average of 18%, and Xiaopeng is affected by the selling price, and the gross profit margin is about 10% on average.
Specific to the business, the proportion of vehicle sales revenue in the annual revenue is increasing, and the carbon credit revenue is gradually declining. Tesla Q4 achieved a total revenue of $17.719 billion, of which vehicle sales revenue of $15.34 billion, accounting for 86.6%, carbon credit revenue fell to $314 million, successfully got rid of the "carbon seller" label.
Another striking feature in Tesla's earnings report is its approximate FMCG market average inventory cycle. According to the financial report, the average inventory cycle in Tesla's global market in 2021 is only 4 days, compared with 11 days in the same period last year. This means that it takes an average of only 4 days for a vehicle to go from factory to delivery.
In contrast, the average inventory cycle of new car companies such as Weilai last year was about 20 days, and most of the traditional car companies exceeded 1 month. You know, the fast fashion clothing industry giant Zara in the name of fast takes about 14 days, and the faster Shein production lead time also takes 5 to 7 days.
Far exceeding the gross profit margin of peers, ultra-short inventory turnover rate. Today's Tesla is more and more like the Apple of the new energy vehicle industry.
02 Musk, pigeon again
With amazing production and sales but no new cars, Musk is "releasing pigeons" again. "$25,000?" There is no time." "Cyber pickup?" It will take time."
The reasons why the stock price fell sharply after the release of excellent financial report data are not unrelated to these. In the three projects of electric pickup truck (Cybertruck), electric truck (Semi), super sports car (Roadster), Tesla has repeatedly lost faith in the market.
Cybertruck debuted at the end of 2019 and has since postponed production plans several times. According to Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry, Tesla may hold a special event in March 2022 to announce two new versions of Cybertruck, and there will be major changes compared to the initial version. Recently, a mass-produced version of the suspected Cybertruck photo was exposed on overseas forums, and the new car reduced the body size and made some detail adjustments.
Cybertruck prototype Image source | The Verge
At present, Tesla Cybertruck has received more than 1.2 million orders, but it is not known what year and month it will be to solve these backlogs of orders.
Behind the delay are capacity and supply chain issues. Musk said on the earnings call that the mass production of Cybertruck had to be postponed precisely because of supply chain problems, especially chip shortages. As its earnings report reads, "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 production expansion."
An important clue to the next observation of Tesla's development is to look at its capacity expansion. According to the financial report, the annual production capacity of Tesla's California factory is about 600,000 (100,000 Model S/X and 500,000 Model 3/Y), and the annual production capacity of the Shanghai factory is more than 450,000 units (all Model 3/Y).
Tesla factory capacity Figure source | Tesla financial report
According to overseas media reports, the Fremont plant in California will produce an average of 8550 cars per week in 2021, surpassing Toyota's Kentucky plant and becoming the most productive plant in North America. Even so, the california plant and the Shanghai plant's combined annual capacity of about 1.05 million units at this stage can only meet this year's delivery needs.
With the commissioning of two gigafactories in Berlin and Texas, as well as the expansion of factories in California and Shanghai, Tesla's production capacity and delivery volume in 2022 may usher in a significant increase. Musk also said on the conference call that Tesla has never stopped looking for a new factory location.
However, whether it can achieve the set goals, in addition to Tesla's own production line capabilities, also depends on the supply chain manufacturers such as batteries and chips. Tesla warned in its earnings report that the restrictions imposed by the supply chain in 2022 will continue.
03 There are many hidden concerns in the supply chain
The supply chain has become Tesla's biggest constraint. On the conference call, Tesla also expressed concern about further capacity growth, which was also transmitted to the secondary market, which in turn affected the stock price.
The first is that chip shortages limit capacity. In the past year or so, the lack of cores and parts has always been a common problem faced by global car companies, and it is not easy for Tesla to achieve almost double the delivery growth in such an environment.
However, Tesla still suffered some shocks. For example, Tesla, which has reduced prices all the way in 2020, chose to increase prices in 2021; for example, in November last year, when some owners in the United States received new cars, they found that there was no USB interface in the car's central control and rear, but only reserved holes. The official response was due to a shortage of chips, which began resupplying in December.
In 2022, Tesla still faces challenges from the supply chain. The results of an analysis of the relevant data of major enterprises in the global semiconductor supply chain released by the US Department of Commerce on the 25th show that the current global semiconductor supply chain is still fragile, and the shortage of chip supply will continue for at least 6 months.
Battery shortages are another dilemma. Tesla's main battery supplier Panasonic battery shortage problem once hindered its development, after Tesla announced a cooperation with CATL. Three days before the release of this financial report, CATL revealed that the battery module base, which is only 3 kilometers away from Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, has begun production.
Tesla has started developing its own batteries to reduce its reliance on external suppliers. In September 2020, Tesla announced the development of a 4680 electrodeless ear battery with a height of 80mm and a diameter of 46mm. According to reports, the battery energy is increased by 5 times, the mileage is increased by 16%, and the power is increased by 6 times.
On the October 2021 earnings call, Tesla said it expects to deliver cars with 4680 batteries in 2022. But that doesn't mean we can get rid of suppliers all at once, Musk said on Twitter, "We intend to increase, not decrease, purchases for Panasonic, LG Chem, and NINGD-era batteries."
According to foreign media reports, Panasonic may be a supplier of Tesla's 4680 batteries, and has planned to invest in the construction of related production lines, planning to supply Tesla in 2023. It is reported that LG may also become a supplier of 4680 batteries.
04 Only technological innovation excites Musk
In the global electric vehicle market, no car company can compete with Tesla, but this does not mean that the competition in the market has decreased in the slightest.
Bank of America's latest report predicts that the large number of new electric vehicles on the market may cause Tesla's market share in the United States to drop sharply from the current 69% to 19% by 2024, while General Motors and Ford will occupy the largest market share.
The Chinese market, which is very important to Tesla, has shown a similar trend. According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, Tesla accounted for 12.7% of the pure electric market from January to November 2021, compared with 15.1% in 2020.
In 2021, the sales volume of "Xiao Liwei" increased significantly, and Xiaopeng ranked "Xiaowei" ahead of Liwei with nearly 3 times the delivery growth, and its sales also reached the mark of 100,000 vehicles. In addition, there is BYD, which has completed its transformation. In the past 2021, BYD's full line of passenger car sales reached 730093 units, an increase of 75.4% year-on-year, of which the annual sales of new energy passenger cars were 593745 units, a year-on-year surge of 231.6%.
However, the market share and production capacity can not make Musk excited, what makes him excited is technological innovation. Referring to software, Musk said on a conference call, "The software business is something that everyone needs to pay attention to, which will bring about a significant increase in profit margins." "A car can go from driving 12 hours a week to 60 hours a week, a fivefold increase. If the utilization of assets is fivefolded, the cost will be significantly reduced, which is very amazing."
China's electric vehicle market has also reached the intersection from electrification reform to intelligent reform. In 2021, China's total sales of new energy vehicles rose by nearly 160% year-on-year, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in January-December was 14.8%, and the penetration rate in December even reached 22.8%.
The penetration rate is surging and the explosive models are frequent, but many traditional car companies rely on low-cost small new energy vehicles, even BYD, which performs better in traditional car companies, is relatively slow to be intelligent.
Musk is more willing to talk about humanoid robots and autonomous driving than talking about productivity and talking about "need more time". "I'd be shocked if I don't reach the level of autonomous driving this year that's safer than human driving." Musk said, "Everything else will suddenly lose its color in the face of Robotaix and autonomous driving."
Tesla Bot image source | Tesla
New energy vehicles will eventually enter the intelligent competition represented by automatic driving. After all, according to Musk's "first principles", for Tesla, accelerating the arrival of the world of electrification and automation is its highest goal, and new models are only means, not ends.
For Tesla, after entering the intelligent battlefield, it will face more fierce competition. The game is far from over, not even halftime yet.
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