According to foreign media reports, Panasonic's financial director recently announced that Panasonic is expected to carry out trial production of 4680 electric vehicle batteries in April 2022. The 4680 battery claims that the energy of the single body can be increased by 5 times, and the mileage of the vehicle is increased by 16%. In an earlier tesla CEO Musk in the earnings report after the release of the conference call, has clearly expressed the news that the 4680 battery is deployed on the Model Y prototype.
Increasing production capacity in 2022 is a top priority
On January 27, 2022, Tesla released its fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. According to the financial report data, Tesla has achieved profitability for 10 consecutive quarters, setting the highest quarterly operating profit margin of the oem in the fourth quarter of 2021, setting a new high of about 940,000 vehicles delivered in the whole year, and achieving production efficiency of more than 1.22 million vehicles per year.
For the full year 2021, Tesla generated a NET PROFIT OF $5.5 billion and a FREE CASH FLOW of $5.5 billion in addition to $6.5 billion spent on new plant construction and other capital expenditures.
In the global traditional car company chip shortage led to large-scale production of the environment, Tesla's small life is more and more moist. In 2021, the production capacity of the Shanghai Tesla Super Project continues to climb. As Tesla's major global export center, Model 3 and Model Y production continues to climb, and Tesla's domestic sales reached 473103 vehicles in 2021, exceeding 50% of Tesla's global delivery. Just imagine, if the endurance of the domestic Model Y can increase by 16% in 2022, in the case of the same price, Tesla China's overall sales are bound to create records again.
Tesla ranked first in the world for electric vehicles in 2020 with sales of 499,535 units. In 2021, 936172 vehicles ranked first in the world in terms of electric vehicle sales, more than doubling the same period last year. Tesla's global sales are expected to continue to grow this year. The explosive growth of sales needs to be based on production capacity, and domestic consumers often need to wait for several months after ordering Tesla, because the Model 3 and Model Y produced by the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai need to be supplied to Greece, Israel, and the United Kingdom. However, with the commissioning of the new factory in Berlin, Germany, the shortage of Tesla in Europe will be alleviated.
Back to the 4680 battery we focused on. This battery will appear in the form of a structured battery, which is a new cylindrical battery with a larger size, 46 mm in diameter and 80 mm in height, so it is named 4680 battery, also called the electrodeless ear battery, after the Tesla application of the 2170 battery pack, there are about 4000 batteries on a car, and the use of 4680 batteries can reduce the number to 800, which greatly reduces the production time of battery equipment. It is important to increase production capacity.
Short sellers lifted most of their bets on Tesla
Tesla has been one of the 30 most popular retail stocks of all 33 weeks since the second quarter of 2021, and 16 of those 33 weeks have entered the top 10 of the most popular.
According to specialist data provider S3 Partners, Tesla's short positions as a percentage of the company's total shares available for trading have fallen to 3.3 percent from 19.6 percent at the beginning of last year. Over the same period, the number of Tesla shares held by short sellers fell by nearly 80 percent to 27 million shares.
Still, Tesla's huge rally means it remains one of the biggest bearish targets for U.S. stocks. Despite the reduction in short positions, Tesla stock has risen more than 1200% since the beginning of last year, meaning that short positions (equivalent to the number of shares being shorted multiplied by the price per share) have increased from just under $11 billion to $28 billion over the same period.