preface
It turned out that Tesla studied humanoid robots to help them build cars.
As soon as the fourth quarter financial report and the 2021 financial report came out, Tesla stepped into the ranks of the world's most profitable car companies with both feet.
Revenue, net profit, and vehicle production and delivery all reached new highs: in 2021, revenue of $53.82 billion (about 340.193 billion yuan) increased by 71% year-on-year; net profit even increased by 665% year-on-year, really making a lot of money; a total of 936172 vehicles were delivered throughout the year, getting closer and closer to the million mark.
It's Tesla's prettiest earnings report ever.
Musk himself has rated it as: a breakthrough year.
At the earnings meeting, Musk also revealed the plan for the new year, there is no shortage of heavy news, such as the statement that it will achieve full self-driving in 2022, and also revealed a new goal for Tesla in the future: the future of the humanoid robot business may be more important than the car business.
Let's take a look.
Supply chain problems still exist, this year's focus on capacity expansion, there will be new factories?
Expanding production capacity is tesla's key word in 2022.
The production situation of the gigafactory and the industrial supply chain are the two major determinants.
Let's look at Tesla's gigafactories.
2021 is not entirely smooth, and the delay in the start of production at the Berlin and Texas factories may have become Musk's biggest regret last year.
Tesla Berlin Gigafactory
Although the Texas Gigafactory has started production by the end of 2021 and the Berlin Gigafactory has started testing of vehicle production equipment, it has not yet received a final production permit from the local government.
However, these are expected to be resolved this year, and Tesla is likely to have a new gigafactory.
At present, Tesla's production capacity is mainly dependent on two gigafactories in Shanghai and Fremont, California, with 936,000 units delivered in 2021.
Gigafactory capacity
According to the earnings report, the Shanghai Gigafactory is still Tesla's main export center. According to the information previously released by Tesla, tesla shanghai gigafactory achieved an annual delivery of 484,100 vehicles in 2021, accounting for 51.7% of the total delivery, occupying half of its global territory; in terms of exports, Shanghai gigafactory contributed more than 160,000 units of off-market deliveries, covering more than 10 countries in Europe and Asia, of which Model 3 exports in 2021 have exceeded 130,000 units.
Tesla believes that local production is very important to reduce the cost per vehicle.
Therefore, on January 27, in the Tesla earnings conference call, Tesla CEO Musk said that this year will be the next Tesla Gigafactory site selection, the results are expected to be announced at the end of this year.
In addition to this, Tesla proposed that supply chain problems will persist throughout this year.
"We plan to increase production capacity as soon as possible. Vehicle delivery is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 50% in the coming years. The specific growth rate depends mainly on the capacity of our equipment, the efficiency of our operations, and the capacity and stability of our supply chain. With supply chains becoming a major limiting factory, our plants have been operating below capacity for several consecutive quarters, and this is likely to continue in 2022. ”
Is it radical to achieve full autonomous driving this year?
In terms of self-driving, Musk has made it clear that Tesla will achieve full self-driving within this year.
At present, Tesla's road to automatic driving is progressing smoothly.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Tesla continued to iterate on the FSD (Full Self-Driving) Beta, releasing a total of 7 updates throughout the quarter. While the functionality continues to improve, the scale of testing is also expanding.
The current scale of FSD Beta testing in the United States has increased from a few thousand vehicles in the third quarter to nearly 60,000 vehicles now. Musk has also previously said that he will expand the scope of user testing to Canada.
In addition to consumer recognition, Tesla's autopilot system has also received authoritative certification. In the fourth quarter, IIHS gave Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y (both pure visual solution versions) "excellent" in terms of collision avoidance and Top Safety Pick+, which is also the agency's highest rating.
Musk's ambition to achieve full autonomous driving is largely supported by the company's AI technology and self-developed computing power.
The company revealed at the meeting that Dojo will come in handy this summer and may be promoted to other companies in the future.
Dojo is Tesla's training unit, 120 Dojo can be formed cabinet ExaPOD, each ExPOD hashrate up to 1.1 EFLOPS, comparable to the world's head supercomputing equipment.
When Dojo came out, the industry had expected that ExaPOD would be used in Tesla's own data center to train autopilot algorithms.
It seems that hash rate is the foundation of everything.
More important to Tesla than Tesla is a humanoid robot?
Speaking of Tesla's most important work in 2022, Musk said: Developing the Optimus humanoid robot is one of Tesla's most important jobs this year.
Last year's Tesla AI Day, Musk announced that Tesla would build a humanoid robot Tesla Bot.
The robot is 1.72 meters tall and weighs 56.6 kilograms, and the robot has a screen on its face to interact with, in addition, it has flexible hands, limbs are driven by electromechanical actuators, and sensors throughout the body can achieve balanced and agile movements.
At the time of the announcement, Musk did not directly indicate the specific functions of the robot, saying only that it would be mainly aimed at "repetitive and boring tasks."
Listening to Tesla's current meaning, this robot will first be applied to Tesla factories, and humanoid robots can help the United States solve the labor shortage problem.
Musk said: "Over time, Optimus may become more important than the automotive business. ”
Article source: China Robot Network
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