To pick up the freshest Tesla earnings news, you need to get up at 5 o'clock Beijing time and then put the news under the dew with the morning light.
However, I, who have always been in a hurry, have not been able to get up this time, in addition to my recent lack of energy caused by insomnia that has almost exceeded the cognition of human diseases, more importantly, two consecutive factory openings this quarter have advanced too much of our excitement quota, and the Shanghai factory has been shut down due to the epidemic, which has also reduced our happy dose.
Before the earnings report, I thought Tesla was going to say that "plain is true" again.
Unexpectedly, a deck of cards that looked like they had been spread out and scattered before could play such a high weight after being arranged and integrated.
Tesla never sleeps.
Sales volumes are undiminished and gross profits are higher
As usual, Tesla's financial and delivery data shows a large increase every quarter is "always", this part I will not repeat, please pay attention to the long chart at the end of the article.
We are more concerned about whether the abnormal epidemic will change these situations and directions.
At the earnings report meeting, Musk joked that "the Shanghai factory has angrily killed back", although the Shanghai factory is still in a state of just resuming work and facing greater supply chain pressure, Musk still said that "we may take a rabbit out of the hat":
"This quarter we will see a new high in production at the Shanghai plant, and the number of vehicles in the second quarter will be higher than in the first quarter."
Since 2019, Tesla has begun to add a large number of pictures that can reflect the most core highlights of the quarter, and the content of this quarter's financial report file can be called the most tender in history, the smiles and fireworks of the opening ceremony of the two factories can still make us feel the beauty of the time, and this sense of stability is also reflected in Tesla's full trust in the production capacity of the two factories.
Musk said Tesla is still confident that it will achieve a 50% increase in delivery volume in 2022 compared to last year (that is, about 1.5 million vehicles delivered annually), and even believes that Tesla has a very high chance of touching the level of 1.6 million vehicles delivered per year.
The financial report data shows that even if the production does not increase, Tesla will make more money.
In the quarter, Tesla's bike gross margin reached a staggering 32%. Just at the end of March, a survey by Autoline showed that Tesla is about to surpass Mercedes and become the most profitable car manufacturer, note that the profit value here is not profit margin, considering that Mercedes-Benz is far higher than the Unit Price of Tesla, Tesla's gross profit margin is the highest in the industry, and even the net profit margin has reached the gross profit margin of many friends.
The scariest thing is that this profit margin shows no signs of slowing down.
When it comes to Tesla's gross margin improvement, the media is more inclined to attribute it to Tesla's technological innovation and capacity climb, but judging from this quarter's earnings call, Tesla's strong position in the market and pricing strategy seem to play a more obvious role in the short term.
On the one hand, Tesla said that the current waiting time for vehicle orders has been quite long, which reflects the strong market demand, which can play a circumstantial evidence that Tesla's global average inventory cycle is only 3 days, indicating that the production of vehicles can be quickly delivered.
On the other hand, Musk said that the pricing that has risen several times so far is "the price of vehicles is actually expected to increase the cost of suppliers and logistics", although he also said that if the cost does not increase, it may also reduce the price slightly, but in fact Tesla has taken advantage of the exuberance on the demand side to make a difference in fact.
Produce more, sell more, earn more, which is enough to be happy for a year when you can draw a blind box on other brands, and you have actually been put together by Tesla and unlocked the hidden money by the way, the funds are not worried, and a solid underlying foundation is prepared for Tesla's follow-up actions.
In this section, there is also a supernatural event. Tesla's orders jumped after the Super Bowl, known as the Spring Festival Gala in the United States, but the most counterintuitive thing is that Tesla did not advertise.
That is, after a large number of advertisements by other brands, people who want to buy electric vehicles finally choose Tesla.
As Musk said, 0 yuan of advertising fees, in exchange for a trillion effect - this sentence actually violates the mainland advertising law.
Technology Babel Tower
Every step in the evolution of automotive technology is undoubtedly long, it may be that Tesla has stood in the spotlight for too long, and many of the originally boring terms have become familiar.
For example, one-piece die casting.
After many times of popular science, we have once again seen a detailed illustration of the integrated die casting in the financial report materials.
In order to avoid the situation of "I hit myself", Tesla chose to use the model 3 body-in-white to compare the model Y's latest structural body, in the same front and rear parts of the body, the model 3 used a total of 171 body parts, and the Model Y only needed 2, the gap was amazing, and the resulting reduction of welding seams reached more than 1600.
Tesla said that this can greatly reduce production time, and even after the process matures, it can effectively reduce the factory area.
Wrapped in the middle between the front and rear bodies, it should be a 4680 battery pack as planned.
The information revealed in this earnings report is that the 4680 battery is powerful, but it is not yet fully mature.
In terms of performance, Musk said Tesla's current 4680 battery has reached the level of the best product on the market and will surpass all competitors in 2023.
But while the 4680 battery continues to evolve, it can't control all the costs.
This also makes large-scale use a while longer.
Tesla said that the 4680 battery will be mass-produced in Q3 this year, but it may take a few years for existing models, such as the Model 3, to move to the same technical architecture.
At the same time, factories including Giga Texas, which has already put into production of 4680 models, will also introduce a production line of 2170 battery specification models this year, and the production of the two batteries will become the mainstream for the next period of time.
Musk didn't forget to sell it off this call: We think we'll have some exciting announcements about batteries in the coming months.
From the expression, Tesla is developing an anode production process with a formula that can be flexibly adjusted, which can make more dynamic production adjustments to the price and content of raw materials.
During the conference call, Tesla revealed its views on the 800V high-voltage architecture.
It is clear that Tesla is already working on the testing of the technology, because "on the Model 3/Y, the voltage of 800V wins and loses."
The obvious upside is that moving from 400V to 800V can save $100 per bike cost, but this requires a certain amount of volume in the vehicle.
As a result, Tesla is considering using 800V for Cybertruck and Semi.
Oh yes, and when it comes to Cybertruck, there's another thing that continues to test patience: Massive mass production of Cybertruck continues to wait until 2023.
Some "other"
It's hard to think about how big Tesla's business footprint is, or how hard you can say, to be precise about Tesla's current business scope.
A lot of things that have passed in one go are likely to become the most important part of the company in the next few years.
Tesla's insurance business has become the second largest insurance company in Texas' business volume, and is launching new business in many places, its value is that it can dynamically reflect the current driving safety value of the owner, more reference significance and more saving money.
Musk had previously promised to help North American car owners build more supercharger stations to alleviate the pressure of charging queues in some areas, so a new round of expansion is coming on the basis of the existing charging network.
Tesla also found a way to improve the economy of scale and humiliate the next oil car, they found that they can recover aluminum casting wheels from traditional cars, melted and die-cast Model Y body, in fact, is a traditional metal recycling industry, with a natural view of natural history of the weak and strong food selection.
Although the robot does not have any specific appearances, "the importance will become obvious in the next few years".
Musk is sure that "robots will ultimately be more valuable than the automotive business, more valuable than FSD."
The unification of loose technology
Why are cybertrucks not going into mass production until 2023 and we're all calm?
Why say that FSD and the automotive business seem as valuable?
Because...... For the first time, Tesla has specified a Robotaxi event in 2023 and mass-produced "highly optimized Robotaxi special vehicles" in 2024.
Even though Musk said that "we don't want to be ahead of the curve on an exciting product announcement," it was clear that the car wouldn't have a steering wheel and pedals.
"There are a few other innovations around it, and those innovations are quite exciting."
The ultimate goal is that "the cost of riding the Robotaxi will be lower than that of subsidized bus or subway tickets."
If "making electric cars as affordable as possible" is Tesla's previous corporate ambition, it is undoubtedly a more subversive and difficult step than the previous version.
This requires both technical feasibility verification and engineering to pull down the cost of deploying the overall technology to a profitable level.
In a previous interview with TED 2022, Musk said that 100,000 Tesla owners in North America have now received the beta test version of the FSD, and just in January, this number is still 60,000, and considering the total purchase volume of FSD and the speed of the current Beta version update iteration, basically this year, the FSD in North America has achieved full testing, which should be a high probability event.
While this is still far from the level of completely safe and accident-free operation required by Robotaxi, at least in 2022, Tesla can fully unify the current FSD-related code and technology routes, and shift more development efforts to new hardware platforms and key scenarios including the rumored HW4.0 next year.
In the previous information of Robotaxi, Tesla only talked once on the battery day, only the battery can withstand the cumulative life of 1.6 million kilometers, Robotaxi can be better supported, at present, Tesla's production of LFP batteries and BMS have been sufficiently verified, and the above series of production technologies are also ready for Robotaxi's hardware costs to be more durable and cheaper.
For a long time, Tesla's earnings reports have made product-obsessed people less excited than they have been in the past few years.
One is because a lot of space is devoted to describing large-scale production.
The second reason is that it feels like a lot of technology is scattered, but there is not a single integration node.
But just like a sand painting, there are several finger marks in the vast drawing board but do not know, so when the sudden hook and detail are added, people suddenly realize and beat the knots to cheer.
Some time ago Musk said that Tesla's Master Plan 3.0, Robotaxi, is undoubtedly the prelude to the 3.0 chapter.
However, we who live on the Internet have often felt the pain of geographical segmentation due to the epidemic recently, compared with FSD as a lesson in such a situation, the technical geographical segmentation in the Robotaxi era may also be more painful than we think.
It's a new season again.
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