On April 21, Tesla released its first quarter 2022 financial report, once again stunning the market.
In the first quarter, Tesla's total revenue was $18.756 billion, an increase of 81% year-on-year; net profit was $3.318 billion (about 21.5 billion yuan), up 658% year-on-year, equivalent to a daily profit of 230 million yuan.
In terms of automobile sales, deliveries reached 310,000 units in the first quarter, up 68% year-on-year.
When the new domestic forces are still mired in losses, why can Tesla continue to make money?
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Tesla said in its first-quarter earnings report that "a large part of the revenue in the first quarter came from the price increase of its products to offset the shortage of raw materials and the income after the price increase." ”
In short, the first quarter performance exceeded expectations, mainly because of price increases.
In 2022, China's new energy vehicle subsidies will continue to decline by 30%, and new energy vehicles that will be licensed after December 31, 2022 will no longer be subsidized by the state.
At the same time, upstream raw materials such as lithium ore are in a booming cycle.
In 2020, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 50,000 yuan / ton, and in Q1 of 2022, it once exceeded 500,000 yuan / ton, up 10 times more than 1 year, known as "lithium super crazy".
Since the end of subsidies and the soaring price of lithium, Tesla, Xiaopeng, Ideal, Nezha, Weima, BYD and other car companies have announced price increases, ranging from thousands of yuan to 20,000 yuan.
In this wave of price increases, Tesla was the first to raise prices, with the most times and the largest amplitude.
At the end of 2021, Tesla took the lead in increasing prices, with the domestic Model Y rear-wheel drive version rising by 21,000 yuan and the Model 3 rear-wheel drive version rising by 10,000 yuan.
In 2022, from March 10 to 17, Tesla raised the price of some domestic Model 3 and ModelY models for three consecutive times, increasing prices by 10,000 yuan, 18,000-20,000 yuan and 15,000 yuan respectively. Among them, the domestic ModelY high-performance version increased by 30,000 yuan in just a few days.
On April 7, Tesla's official website in the United States raised the ModelY high-performance version by $1,000 and the Model3 long-endurance version by $1,500.
After several rounds of price increases, Tesla successfully resisted the crisis of raw material surge and handed over the strongest quarterly report in history.
Benefiting from multiple price increases, Tesla's gross vehicle gross margin also reached an unprecedented 32.9%.
How strong is the gross margin of 32.9%? In contrast, the gross profit margin of giants such as BBA and Toyota in traditional car companies is less than 20%.
Among electric vehicle companies, the gross profit margin of BYD Automobile in 2021 was 17.39%, and the gross profit margin of "Wei Xiaoli" Automobile was 20.1%, 20.6% and 11.5%, respectively.
The same is the price increase, Tesla's cost reduction and efficiency increase capabilities are obviously far more than BYD, new forces and other peers.
However, relying on price increases to break the siege is not sustainable after all, as a former "price butcher" Tesla knows this well. Expressed the desire not to raise the price of new cars anymore, and if the cost does not rise in the future, consider a price reduction.
Therefore, after the cost of inflation relief falls in the future, Tesla will restart the price war..... For consumers, this is at least good news.
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Behind the stunning quarterly report, Tesla also has many hidden worries, such as the clichéd capacity problem.
Tesla's current problem is not demand, but limited capacity. Global production capacity is stable, and high gross profit margin is guaranteed.
However, in 2022, when the epidemic is repeated, the global supply chain is blocked, the chip shortage is in short supply, and the price of raw materials is raised, it is almost a luxury to make the production capacity unlimited.
In 2021, Tesla produced a total of 930,400 vehicles and delivered 936,200 units, an increase of 87% year-on-year.
Musk said, "Tesla sales will grow by 60% in 2022, will grow by more than 50% annually in the next few years, and reach 20 million units in 2030." Tesla does not have a new car this year, and the focus is still on expanding production capacity. ”
Tesla sales increased by 68% in the first quarter, and it was better to complete the task, but in the second quarter, there were big problems.
Tesla has four vehicle manufacturing plants in Shanghai, California, Berlin and Texas. Among them, the Shanghai Gigafactory has an annual production capacity of 750,000 units, which is half of its total global production capacity.
Unfortunately, the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai in the first quarter temporarily suspended the production of many enterprises, and China's automotive supply chain was deeply affected.
As the second largest automobile production base in China, there are as many as 20,000 auto parts companies in Shanghai alone. The suspension of production will naturally affect the sales of car companies, and the data of the Association of Automobile Associations shows that the output of many car companies fell sharply in March:
FAW Hongqi's March production fell 73% year-on-year, FAW-Volkswagen fell 45.8%, SAIC-GM fell 31.3%, Beijing Benz fell 30.7%, BMW Brilliance fell 51%, and SAIC Maxus fell 34% year-on-year.
Throughout the first quarter, affected by the sluggish consumption, the cumulative retail sales of the national passenger car market were 4.915 million units, down 4.5% year-on-year, and generally lower than expected.
On April 9, NIO announced on the official App that it had suspended vehicle production. CEO Li Bin said that a car is not as good as a part.
On April 14, He Xiaopeng, founder of Xiaopeng Motors, also said in the circle of friends, "If the supply chain enterprises in Shanghai and the surrounding areas cannot find a way to dynamically resume work and production, all Chinese automakers may have to stop work and production in May." ”
After several weeks of suspension, on April 18, SAIC Motor launched a stress test to resume work and production; on April 19, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory resumed work and production, and 8,000 employees returned to the factory one after another. Under the impetus of relevant departments, Tesla is actively promoting the resumption of work and production of more than 100 parts manufacturers.
At present, the Shanghai super factory can only restore half of its production capacity, and if it wants to reach the pre-epidemic production capacity level, I am afraid it will be until May.
The Shanghai Gigafactory will stop production at the end of March, resume production on April 19, and will not be able to resume until May at the earliest. This means that the impact of the shutdown will be concentrated in the second quarter, not the first quarter.
In the second quarter of the financial report, Tesla's production capacity or will be the same as the first quarter, and the falling production capacity will be supplemented by the second half of the year.
However, Musk is full of confidence in the Shanghai Gigafactory, saying that due to the Shanghai epidemic, the Shanghai Tesla factory lost about a month of output, about 60,000-70,000 vehicles. But the Shanghai factory has "returned from revenge" and this quarter will see a new record for weekly production.
Because there are a few weeks of failure to produce, it means that the number of mass production of Q2 will be basically the same as that of Q1, but Q3 will be much higher. Looking at it now, there is a high probability that 1.5 million production can be achieved this year.
In addition, car companies and suppliers generally sign long orders, lithium carbonate may be implemented last year's price when the first quarter soared, and if the price of new contracts signed in the second quarter will rise sharply, it will lead to an increase in costs, which is also a hidden worry.
After earning 230 million yuan a day in the first quarter, whether Tesla's performance can continue to soar still needs time to verify.