Recently, Tesla submitted a 10-K annual report to the US SEC, disclosing a series of more specific financial data.
In addition to the conventional data such as deliveries and total revenue that have been released in the previous financial report, Tesla's 10-K document includes the progress of major projects such as energy storage business, financial services and factory construction, and also mentions potential operating risks, the proportion of revenue in major global markets, and changes in book value after purchasing bitcoin.
Tesla said it will continue to expand the production scale of existing factories and plans to further control production costs by increasing local manufacturing capacity in major markets, and the gigafactory in Berlin, Germany and Texas in the United States is part of the plan, and the two will be put into operation this year.
In addition, the presence of the energy storage business in Tesla's layout has also been strong, Tesla introduced, has developed software that can remotely control and dispatch energy storage systems.
However, the profitability of the energy storage business has not yet emerged, in the fourth quarter of last year, the revenue of the energy storage business fell by nearly 15% month-on-month to $688 million (about 4.38 billion yuan), accounting for only nearly 4% of the total revenue, and the profit increase space needs to be further tapped.
Of course, Tesla's investment results in Bitcoin, which has always been "not doing business", have also attracted much attention, after all, Musk was once called "the first person to carry goods in cryptocurrencies", and the investment results of his own company seem to be more able to test Musk's "goods" performance.
According to the data, Tesla lost $101 million (about 640 million yuan) due to the plunge in Bitcoin last year, and it should be known that at the peak of the beginning of last year, Tesla made about $1 billion (about 6.36 billion yuan) in bitcoin investment, and even once exceeded the net profit of the automotive business in 2020.
Subsequently, under the pressure of multiple bearish factors, the price of Bitcoin went all the way down at the end of last year.
Although the loss on Bitcoin is relatively acceptable, it is still a negative signal that cannot be ignored compared with the automotive business with a stable gross profit margin. As of the end of last year, Tesla's fair market value of bitcoin holdings still reached $1.99 billion (about 12.65 billion yuan).
On the other hand, this 10-K document once again shows the importance of the Chinese market to Tesla.
In the full text of the document, the words "China" and "Shanghai" appear 45 and 65 times respectively, and the Shanghai factory has become a "hot word" in Tesla's earnings reports, meetings and reports.
First of all, of Tesla's total revenue of $53.823 billion last year, the Chinese market contributed $13.844 billion (about 88.06 billion yuan), accounting for nearly 30%, second only to the US market, and rose more than 100% for two consecutive years. Behind such a high increase, it is inseparable from the blessing of Shanghai Super Factory.
The Shanghai Gigafactory accelerated the localization of vehicle production, providing more space for gross margin growth, giving Tesla the confidence to become a "price butcher", and also helping Tesla to leave a number of new domestic car-making forces far behind, and its cumulative delivery volume for the whole year last year was more than three times that of the total delivery of "Wei Xiaoli".
And when the Berlin factory was unable to start production on time due to the delay in obtaining the construction permit, the Shanghai factory shouldered the heavy responsibility of filling the vacancy.
Since October 2020, the second year of official production, the Model 3 produced at the Shanghai plant has been exported to dozens of countries such as Germany, France, and Italy. Previously, some media reported that the export volume of the Shanghai factory reached 160,000 vehicles last year, and the export volume of the Model 3 car alone exceeded 130,000 units.
Therefore, it is not difficult to see that the demand and supply capacity of the Chinese market are crucial to Tesla's revenue and cost control.
Looking to the future, it is foreseeable that Tesla will continue to increase the production capacity of the Shanghai factory, and after the Berlin factory is put into operation, the products of the Shanghai factory will be more for domestic consumers.
At last month's earnings report, Musk revealed that Tesla has no plans to launch new models this year, and the goal is still focused on increasing production capacity, and will look for a new gigafactory site, which is reported to be officially announced at the end of the year.
In fact, at the end of last year, there were many media reports that Tesla was selecting a site in some cities in China to build a second gigafactory, which immediately attracted the attention of many people inside and outside the industry, and its global vice president Tao Lin then publicly denied the news.
But it is undeniable that if Tesla really builds a second factory in China, or continues to explore lower price ranges after the production capacity is increased, other new car-making forces will face a more direct "dimensionality reduction blow".
Produced by ZAKER News
Text / Bao Xingwa
Editor / Zeng Xiantian