"2022 is a wonderful year for Tesla. On every level, this is the best year we have ever had."
Although Tesla failed to complete Musk
html On November 26, Tesla handed over its fourth quarter and full-year report cards for 2022.
Data:
- Tesla’s fourth quarter revenue was US$24.318 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37%, and net profit was US$3.707 billion;
- 022 For the full year, Tesla’s total revenue increased by 51% year-on-year, reaching html US$181.5 billion ; GAAP net profit reached US$12.6 billion.
Tesla’s official summary is: the fourth quarter of 2022 is another record-breaking quarter, and 2022 is also a record-breaking year. In the last quarter, Tesla achieved the highest operating income in a single quarter, the highest operating profit and the highest net profit in history. The GAAP net profit for the whole year of 2022 more than doubled year-on-year.
But this is not enough.
In the financial report conference call, the keyword "factory expansion" was mentioned repeatedly. Musk said that in 2023, 50% of Tesla's car sales will have a compound growth rate unchanged, and the annual sales target will be a minimum of 1.8 million vehicles and a sprint of 2 million vehicles.
Also announced along with the sales target were assisted driving software and Tesla’s new car plans for 2023.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, Tesla's output and delivery volume continued to grow significantly.
Specifically, Tesla's fourth-quarter output was 439,701 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 44%, and its delivery volume was 405,278 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 31%. Among them: the production volume of
- Model S and Model X models was 20,613 units, a year-on-year increase of 57%; the delivery volume was 17,147 units, a year-on-year increase of 46%. The production volume of
- Model 3 and Mode lY models was 419,088 units, a year-on-year increase of 43%; the delivery volume was 388,131 units, a year-on-year increase of 31%.
From a full-year perspective, Tesla's production and delivery volume exceeded the one million mark. In 2022, production reached 1.36 million vehicles and delivery volume reached 1.31 million vehicles, an increase of 47% and 40% respectively, but this data is still far from the 50% growth that Musk wants.
In Musk’s view, it is not easy to achieve the above goals.
"In 2022, we delivered more than 1.3 million vehicles and achieved a 15.41% profit margin, the highest of any automaker. Although 2022 was an extremely challenging year due to forced shutdowns, extremely high interest rates, and many delivery challenges, the Tesla team achieved these records."
5.41% net profit margin , what is this concept?
For comparison, BYD's net interest rate is 3.73%, Toyota Motor is 6.89%, and General Motors is 6.78%. This is equivalent to Tesla's net interest rate being 4.13 times that of BYD, 2.23 times that of Toyota , and 2.27 times that of General Motors.
This also brings Tesla's automotive business revenue in 2022 to 71.462 billion US dollars (484.834 billion yuan) , and the total revenue has reached 81.462 billion US dollars (552.6 billion yuan) .
In comparison, the automotive businesses of traditional giants Mercedes-Benz , BMW , and Audi in 2021 are 109.648 billion euros, 111.239 billion euros, and 53.68 billion euros respectively. Therefore, Musk’s statement that “we have proven that electric vehicles can be more profitable than gasoline vehicles” is not false.
The ultra-high net profit margin is based on gross profit margin. Tesla's gross profit margin for the whole year of 2022 reached an astonishing 5.3%.
But if compared with the past gross profit margin, Tesla has experienced a decline in gross profit margin for five consecutive quarters (30.6%, 32.9%, 27.9%, 27.9%, 25.3%).
The gross profit margin is lower than market expectations may be inseparable from these two reasons:
First, Tesla chose to cut prices in October last year. This was a decision made due to insufficient demand, which hurt the gross profit margin to a certain extent;
Second, Tesla experienced a sharp decline in demand in December last year and decided to shut down the Shanghai factory. Reduced sales means that profits are also reduced, and gross profits are declining due to rising costs.
But Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn believes that the continuous profit margin decline is mainly affected by three factors.
- Raw materials and inflation due to lithium prices;
- Austin and Berlin and early inefficiencies at internal battery production plants;
- Tesla's vehicle mix in 2021 is shifting more towards the Model Y, which carries a slight cost premium over the Model 3.
In order to partially offset these effects, Tesla will continue to implement a controllable cost reduction strategy and gradually achieve regionally balanced vehicle manufacturing, such as accelerating improvements to new factories in Austin and Berlin, and reducing logistics, acceleration, accumulation of material buffers, parts premiums, productivity and overhead costs.
According to Kirkhorn, Tesla Motors gross profit margin will be higher than 20% in 2023, the average selling price will be higher than 47,000 US dollars, and the gross profit margin is also confident to remain above 20%.
2022 will be a year full of uncertainty for the global electric vehicle industry.
Musk believes that to become a manufacturer of millions of electric vehicles, improving the affordability of products is the only way. Price changes have a significant impact on ordinary consumers, and affordability is very important - Tesla's goal has always been to make it affordable for as many people as possible.
Through Tesla’s unremitting cost control and cost innovation, its average selling price has generally tended to decline, and has halved from 2017 to 2022, but its operating profit margin has continued to increase, from about -14% to 17%.
Tesla is still pursuing the ultimate by introducing lower-cost models, building more efficient local chemical plants, reducing vehicle costs and operating leverage .
2022 is the product year of new energy vehicles .
"Wei Xiaoli" has new products on the market. Xpeng's G9 and Ideal L9, Nio's , in addition to delivering ET7 and ET5, three new models including ES7 have been completed one after another.
in the country, the electric vehicle market is maturing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
But for Tesla, there will be no new car releases in 2022, expanding production capacity is the core of decision-making.
In April 2022, with the official launch of Tesla's Austin Gigafactory in Texas, the United States, Tesla currently has six factories around the world, spanning three continents.
Among them, the Fremont, Shanghai, Berlin and Austin, Texas factories are responsible for vehicle manufacturing, while the Nevada and New York factories are responsible for the production of battery packs, charging piles and solar roofs respectively.
As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2022:
- The new factory in Austin, the United States, and the Berlin factory in Europe have a weekly production capacity of more than 3,000 Model Y vehicles, with an annual production capacity of more than 500,000 vehicles;
- The Shanghai factory is still Tesla's main export center, supplying vehicles to most markets outside North America, and the annual production capacity of Model 3/Model Y exceeds 75 10,000 vehicles;
- and the annual production capacity of Model S/Model
Tesla's total production capacity has reached .9 million units, and full production can rise to 2 million units (40,000 units per week) .
In Musk’s view, Tesla’s internal production potential in 2023 is actually close to 2 million vehicles, but the externally stated target is 1.8 million vehicles. If there are no supply chain disruptions or other impacts this year, Tesla may actually produce 2 million vehicles this year.
This is a landmark capability.
BMW's global sales in 2022 will be 2.39 million units, and Mercedes-Benz will be 2.04 million units. This is equivalent to Tesla, as a pioneer of pure electric car companies, approaching the production level of traditional car companies.
According to the plan, Tesla's electric truck Semi has entered large-scale mass production at the Nevada factory. The electric pickup truck Cybertruck is expected to be put into production in Texas in 2023 and mass-produced in 2024, with a production capacity target of 250,000 vehicles/year.
But Musk was not satisfied and continued to build factories and expand.
htmlOn November 25, Tesla announced that it would expand a 4680 battery factory and a factory dedicated to producing Semi in northern Nevada, at a total cost of html$13.6 billion.
Among them, the 4680 battery factory plan is to continue to increase 00GWh battery production on the basis of the existing Gigafactory 2 super factory, which is equivalent to 1.5 million Model 3/Y. The total production capacity of the two-phase factory will exceed 130GWh/year, which is enough to supply Tesla's estimated 1.8 million cars.
As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, the Tesla 4680 team has achieved a production rate of 1,000 vehicles per week, with one of Giga Texas's four production lines in production and the remaining three in the commissioning and installation stage.
According to the plan, Tesla plans to provide a cost-effective 4680 production capacity ramp before Cybertruck, focusing on improving the quality of large-volume supply of mechanical parts and increasing the output of the factory process as much as possible. If these key goals can be successfully achieved, Tesla will usher in an important "
"Not all the second-phase battery factories will be used for Semi trucks, some future products will also use 4680," Musk revealed the details of the new products in advance during a conference call.
As for new product planning in 2023, Kirkhorn revealed:
"Tesla will continue to ensure that funding is prioritized for our long-term roadmap, including expanding in-house battery production, bringing Cybertruck to market, developing our next-generation vehicle platform, expanding our manufacturing footprint, and growing our energy business. Information will be released one month later (March 1 ’s Investor Day to discuss these plans in more detail.”
To be sure, Tesla is not currently working on a so-called $25,000 low-priced Tesla, because Musk has more important things.
In Musk's view:
"The efficiency improvements of Giga Texas, Berlin factory and 4680 in 2022 will give Tesla a lot of room for cost reduction. In terms of raw materials and inflation, lithium is the main driver. This is a meaningful source of cost increase for Tesla. We must always pay attention to the direction of lithium prices. Although we are not completely affected by lithium prices, I think the cost of lithium per car in 2023 will be higher than 2022. "
"We are collecting a lot of data from the Model 3/Y that has been sold to understand how we can expand larger sources of profit. Therefore, in terms of powertrain, Tesla will continue to cut costs in 2023, eliminating some configurations that pay for performance or are not just needed by consumers, resulting in significant cost reductions. Tesla is not only relying on supply, but also conducting design activities to reduce costs," Musk added.
In short, whether it is the optimization of business models or the innovation of production methods, Tesla has found its own position in the new track of smart cars, and has become the definer of industry rules relying on its leading advantages ( open source code, integrated die-casting and other methods have become the source of imitation by the outside world) and leader.
In 2022, Tesla has also made many advances in technology.
This year, Tesla's FSD update speed has been greatly improved. The number of participating vehicles in the FSD beta system test has increased from 2,000 vehicles in 2021 to 160,000 vehicles in 2022, which is equivalent to an 80-fold growth in one year. The total mileage outside the highway has reached .1 billion miles (approximately 160 million kilometers) .
At the same time, Tesla has pushed the new FSD beta system to almost all car owners who purchased FSD in the United States and Canada (approximately 400,000 people). Every North American car owner can experience the latest features of assisted driving.
In Tesla’s words, this is “an important milestone for the company.”
Tesla’s North American official website shows that its latest FSD price is US$15,000. At this price, these 400,000 users will bring Tesla more than US$6 billion in revenue.
In Musk’s eyes, Hardware 3 is still the most efficient autonomous driving computing platform in the world. Although it has been 5 years since the start of research and development, with the arrival of Hardware 4, especially after Hardware 5, FSD will make a major leap forward.
At the financial report conference, Musk also revealed that the Cybertruck HW 4 will be ready for mass production. The supercomputing Dojo platform previously unveiled at AI DAY may also be put into use this year.
For Tesla, it was once considered to have two ways to form an ecological closed loop similar to Apple:
- In the field of electrification, it is the charging network
- In the field of intelligence, it is the autonomous driving service (FSD)
However, Tesla in 2022 In 2017, it opened its own supercharging piles to other electric vehicle brands. Another service that is comparable to the "closed loop" of technology products and is regarded as Tesla's key moat is the FSD service.
According to Essence Securities , Tesla’s cumulative cash income through the FSD payment model has reached US$1.26 billion. It is estimated that in 2030, subscription service revenue is expected to exceed 6 billion US dollars per year.
Financial report data shows that Tesla FSD brought revenue of 324 million US dollars in the fourth quarter, but compared to the total revenue of 65 million for the whole year, the proportion of software revenue is still negligible.
Official data shows that since 2014, Tesla’s revenue contribution from FSD per quarter has been maintained at around US$300 million for a long time, accounting for less than 5% of the total annual revenue.
Although Tesla’s average monthly domestic sales are close to 30,000 vehicles, in fact, official disclosures indicate that less than 2% of Chinese users will pay to purchase FSD, which is still a “ futures product.”
Therefore, although the increase in Tesla's FSD opening rate is a major trend, looking at the global market, regional policy impact and consumer education are still two important hurdles in the appreciation of Tesla's future autonomous driving software.
In March 2022, Musk posted on Weibo: "Even some of the world's best artificial intelligence software engineers are not aware of the advanced level of Tesla's artificial intelligence."
Compared with building cars, Musk is more confident in Tesla's AI capabilities, and the most important and valuable application field of AI is undoubtedly autonomous driving. It remains to be seen whether Tesla can truly achieve a technological breakthrough and achieve fully autonomous driving, thus increasing the proportion of software revenue.
But at least now it is certain that Tesla is making more and more money. It not only occupies the top position in the field of new energy vehicles, but also still leads the transformation of the entire automobile industry.
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