On January 25, 2024, Beijing time, Tesla released its 2023 annual financial report, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his senior management team also accepted interviews with the media on the earnings interpretation call.
1. In terms of financial performance, the total revenue for the whole year of 2023 will reach 96.773 billion US dollars (about 692.2 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 18.79%, with more than 29 billion US dollars in cash and investment and free cash flow of more than 4.4 billion US dollars so far, and a total of 1.81 million electric vehicles will be delivered worldwide in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 38%, winning the global pure electric vehicle delivery champion, and a customer places an order to buy Tesla every 6 seconds. Tesla's Shanghai plant produces 950,000 vehicles, more than half of the total production, making it the world's largest factory.
2. R&D expenditure, the highest value in history, advertising expenses close to 0. Tesla's annual R&D expenses were US$3.969 billion (about 28.39 billion yuan), which is equivalent to the total R&D expenses of several new EV manufacturers. In terms of advertising spending, Tesla is almost 0, according to Lao Ma's point of view: Tesla continues to invest its main energy and resources in technology research and development, constantly improving the hard core power of products, and making consumers pay for real technology every penny.
3. With more than 1.2 million deliveries, the Model Y has become the best-selling model in the world (not only in the electric car segment, but in all vehicle types) (in 2023). About 90% of customers who buy Tesla vehicles in 2023 have never owned a Tesla before.
4. Energy storage business revenue increased by 54% to US$6.04 billion, and the total installed capacity of energy storage reached 14.7GWh, more than double that of 2022, and energy storage is preparing to become Tesla's next cash cow.
5. There will be no new models launched in 2024, and the next-generation model will be mass-produced in 2025. In 2023, Tesla's gross profit margin for the whole year will be 18.2%, a year-on-year decrease of 7.35 percentage points, the first decline since 2017. It proves that the profit margins between existing platforms, technologies and products have been compressed to the extreme, and Tesla needs to seek a new generation of products to drive gross profit and revenue growth.
"The growth rate of companies will also be different at different stages. We are currently in the middle of two growth waves: the first wave is the global market entry of Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y, and the second wave is the global expansion of our next-generation platform products. The company's sales growth is likely to be lower in 2024 as the team is currently focusing on launching a new generation of products. ”
The media predicted that the name of the next-generation model will be "Redwood", and the unit price will be around 25,000 US dollars, but Musk did not confirm it, but mentioned: "According to the current plan, our new product is expected to be put into production in the second half of next year." The ramp-up was certainly challenging, and to be honest, we were almost asleep in the factory. But I firmly believe that once the production line is officially put into operation, it will far surpass other existing manufacturing technologies in the world, and it can even be said to be a qualitative leap.
6. Chinese car companies are super capable of fighting, and the development of globalization is currently only limited by the trade protection policies of other countries. "Frankly, if they didn't put trade barriers in place, they would pretty easily beat most other car companies in the world," Musk said. They were brilliant ». At present, Tesla's cooperation in China is very extensive and has good prospects, but on the global front, "I do not see a clear opportunity to cooperate with Chinese automakers", which means that it is still limited by the current restrictions on Chinese cars in various countries.
7. Tesla's sales target for 2024 has not been announced. At this earnings conference, Tesla did not announce its sales target for 2024, which should be around 2.2 million units according to Wall Street analysts' estimates, an increase of 21% over 2023, which is lower than the long-term target of 50% average annual growth set by Musk for Tesla three years ago.
8. Regarding the humanoid robot Optimus, it is very likely that a certain number of Optimus will be shipped next year.At the earnings interpretation meeting, Tesla executives refused to give clear information guidance to the humanoid robot, and some of the views given by Musk can be referred to. The Optimus is by far the most complex humanoid robot being developed in the world, with the potential to far exceed the value of Tesla's other products combined, and it is very likely that a portion will be shipped next year, and Tesla is currently ensuring the safety of the Optimus, especially when used on a large scale. He also pointed out that the obstacle is getting Optimus to do something useful.
9. Regarding FSD, Musk said that "Tesla is the company with the highest efficiency in artificial intelligence reasoning. When it comes to AI inference, we're way ahead of other companies in the world. Musk also demonstrated the new version of FSD Beta, and the cumulative mileage of the software has reached about 750 million miles. Trained on data from more than a million vehicles, the system uses artificial intelligence technology to influence vehicle controls (e.g., operating steering wheels, pedals, turn signals, etc.) rather than hard-coding every driving behavior. V12 marks a new era of autonomous driving.