Author | Xu Yun
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Produced by | Bullet money view
Tesla's pace of expansion has taken on a new direction.
On May 4, foreign media reported that Tesla plans to build a new factory near the current Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory to produce Model 3 and Model Y, which is expected to increase the annual production capacity of 450,000 vehicles and become Tesla's "largest automobile export center" in the world.
Soon, "Tesla is about to build a second factory in Shanghai" was sent to Weibo hot search.
However, on May 5, there were also media reports that the accurate information obtained from Tesla insiders was "expansion, not a second factory."
But whether it is expanding production or building a second factory, it means that Tesla's production capacity will usher in further increases. What's more, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has set a goal of "50% year-on-year growth" for Tesla deliveries in 2022, and may even achieve 60% growth.
Musk's exposed ambitions have undoubtedly also stimulated Tesla's stock price to rise, after the expansion news flowed out, as of the close of May 4, Eastern Time, Tesla stock price rose 4.77%, closing at $952.62, with a total market value of $986.9 billion.
However, for the ambitious Musk and his Tesla, the outside world's concerns have never stopped.
1. The big winner of new energy vehicles
At the moment when the automobile industry is moving towards the new energy era, Tesla is undoubtedly the most concerned new energy car company in the world, and its founder Elon Musk has also become the biggest winner, successfully reaching the world's richest man with Tesla.
According to Forbes China, Musk's wealth increased by $68 billion in 2021. On the "2022 Global Billionaires List" released by Forbes on April 5, Musk surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (worth $171 billion) to become the world's richest man with a net worth of $219 billion as of March 11, 2022.
In the first quarter of 2022, for 3 months, Tesla also made huge profits.
Tesla's financial report shows that in the first quarter, its total revenue was $18.756 billion, an increase of 81% from $10.389 billion in the same period last year, of which the automotive business revenue reached $16.86 billion, an increase of 87% year-on-year. Tesla's net profit in the first quarter reached $3.318 billion, up 657.53% from $438 million in the same period last year.
This performance exceeded expectations, after Wall Street expected Tesla's revenue and profit to be about $18 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.
For the growth in car sales revenue, Tesla attributed it to the increase in car deliveries and the rise in bicycle prices.
In the earnings report, Tesla noted that in the three months ended March 31, 2022, the cash deliveries of the Model 3 and Model Y increased by 111915, and the cash deliveries of the Model S and Model X increased by 10,305 year-on-year.
Since the beginning of this year, with the price increase of raw materials in the upstream of the new energy automobile industry, many new energy vehicle brands such as Tesla, BYD, Xiaopeng, Weilai and Weima have set off a wave of price increases, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
In the 8 days from March 10 to 17 this year, Tesla has frantically raised prices 3 times, raising the price of some domestic Model 3 and Model Y models, and the price increase range is between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan. Among them, only the Model Y high-performance version of a model in a few days to increase the price of 30,000 yuan.
According to Tesla's official website, as of May 5, the model Y high-performance version was priced at 417,900 yuan.
Photo / Tesla official
At the same time, Tesla also raised the price of its products in the United States, ranging from $2,000 to $12,500.
This is very different from Tesla's initiatives that are eager to seize the market in 2020: in 2020, Tesla repeatedly lowered the price of its products, and in January, Tesla lowered the price of the Chinese-made Model 3 base car from 356,000 yuan to 324,000 yuan, and the subsidized price was 299,000 yuan. In May, after the announcement of the subsidy threshold of 300,000 yuan for new energy vehicles, Tesla adjusted the starting price of the Model 3 standard endurance upgrade to 291,800 yuan, and the price after subsidies was as low as 271,600 yuan...
Behind this is the increase in the market demand for new energy vehicles.
Relevant data show that in 2021, the annual sales of new energy vehicles in the world will be 6.75 million, an increase of 108% year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China increased by more than 160% year-on-year, and the sales volume reached 3.52 million units.
For the full year of 2021, Tesla delivered 936,200 units, an increase of 87.4% year-on-year. From January to March this year, Tesla delivered 310048 vehicles, about one-third of the deliveries in 2021, an increase of 69% year-on-year.
On the day of the release of this eye-catching earnings report (April 21), Tesla's intraday stock price rose by 12%, although the increase at the close narrowed to 3.23% due to the decline in the broader market, the stock price still closed at $1008.78 per share.
2, cars no longer make hard money?
Behind Tesla's eye-catching first-quarter financial report, it not only reflects the changes in the market demand for new energy vehicles, but further, let people see the new possibilities after the car enters the new energy era: no longer make hard money.
In the first quarter of 2022, the gross margin of Tesla's automotive business reached 32.9%, compared with 26.5% in the same period last year. Such a gross profit margin may be called "extremely poor" if it is placed on consumer goods companies such as Nongfu Spring and Guizhou Moutai. But in the automotive industry, such a gross profit margin has reached the top, and the outside world even uses "record" to describe it.
Graph /Photo Network, based on VRF protocol
According to the statistics of Oriental Wealth Choice, at present, there are about 29 vehicle companies listed in A-shares and Hong Kong stocks, and in view of the fact that most car companies have not yet released the first quarter of 2022 financial reports, they only compare the financial data of 2020 and 2021, and the gross profit margins of these car companies are difficult to compete with Tesla.
Among the 29 listed vehicle companies, 9 car companies, including SAIC Group and GUANGZHOUC Group, have gross profit margins of less than 10%, and beiqi Blue Valley, which was once proud of the spring breeze in the new energy vehicle market, has a gross profit margin of as low as 0.81%.
Including BYD, Geely, the "top three auto autonomous" Geely, Great Wall and Changan, as well as new car-making forces Weilai and Xiaopeng, the gross profit margin remained between 10% and 20%.
Among them, Weilai, which takes the high-end route and is constantly used to benchmark with Tesla, although the gross profit margin ranks first among 17 car companies, reaching 18.88%, it is still far from Tesla. Even Tesla's biggest rival, BYD, has a gross profit margin of only 13.02%, a new low since 2013, and the gross profit margin of its auto business alone is only 17.39%, down 7.81% year-on-year.
Only beijing automobile and ideal automobile have a gross profit margin of more than 21%, which are 21.4% and 21.33% respectively.
Looking at the world, Tesla's gross profit margin has also left a number of luxury car brands behind. In 2021, mercedes-benz, BMW and Audi had full-year gross margins of 12.7%, 17.6% and 10.7%, respectively.
"Tesla is much higher than the gross profit margin of other companies in the automotive industry, on the one hand, it is related to its higher brand positioning, and the relative price of the main sales model is relatively high; on the other hand, in the field of new energy vehicles, Tesla holds a large number of orders, and has a greater right to speak when talking about cooperation with upstream companies such as power battery companies, which also helps to reduce its cost." In addition, the increase in production capacity of the Shanghai Gigafactory has also further reduced Tesla's costs. A person working in a domestic car-making new force enterprise told the "bullet financial concept".
Tesla also said bluntly in the financial report that the main reason for the increase in gross profit margin is that with the increase in production capacity of the Shanghai factory, the sales and production structure of model Y has undergone favorable changes. "Despite the rising costs of raw materials, commodities, logistics and acceleration, the average unit cost of the Model 3 and Model Y has declined due to local sourcing and manufacturing in China."
It is reported that in 2021, the delivery volume of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory increased by 235% year-on-year to 484,100 units, accounting for 51.7% of Tesla's annual delivery of 936,200 vehicles. As Tesla launched its efforts in the European market, the Shanghai Gigafactory played a huge role, with more than 160,000 vehicles delivered from the Shanghai factory to overseas markets such as Europe.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Tesla's stock price has risen sharply after the news that Tesla's Shanghai factory will expand production.
The above-mentioned new car-making forces further pointed out that the gross profit margin of the new car-making forces is generally higher than that of traditional car companies, and one reason is that the new car-making forces have more ways to make money, such as the income from the sale of new energy points and the income from software services.
3, car companies besieged Tesla
But Tesla, which seems to be soaring at the moment, is not without hidden worries.
The biggest concerns still come from capacity. In the early years, Tesla was deeply trapped in the "production capacity hell" due to insufficient power battery production capacity. Today, although Tesla's production capacity has been greatly improved, it can be said that production capacity constraints are still Tesla's problems.
With the groundbreaking ceremony of Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory on March 22, Tesla has its fourth gigafactory in the world after Nevada, New York and Shanghai.
It is reported that the annual output of Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory will reach 500,000 vehicles, and the main production models will be Model 3 and Model Y. So far, Tesla has established its own production bases in the three major global car markets of North America, China and Europe.
Only when the global production capacity is stable, high sales, high revenue and high gross profit margin can be guaranteed. But at present, the production capacity of Tesla's Berlin factory can be said to be in its infancy.
At the moment of repeated epidemics, the development of the automobile supply chain is blocked, the sharp increase in demand for new energy vehicles is conveyed to the upstream chip shortage, the problem of raw material price increases remains unresolved, in this context, including Tesla, Weilai and other car companies have encountered a shutdown crisis.
On April 14, Xiaopeng Automobile CEO He Xiaopeng pointed out in a post on his social platform, "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." ”
Graph /Photo Network, based on VRF protocol
From March 28 to April 19, Tesla's Shanghai plant experienced the longest shutdown since it was completed and put into operation – 22 days. From the perspective of the calculation time of the financial report, the impact of the suspension of production will be mainly concentrated in the second quarter.
But Musk clearly doesn't intend to slow down the pace of expansion, having pointed out on a conference call that Tesla vehicle deliveries will increase by 50% in 2022 compared to 2021, and may even achieve a 60% increase. Even at a 50% growth rate, Tesla will deliver more than 1.4 million vehicles in 2022.
With the expansion of production capacity, the cost input will also increase. However, at present, the price of raw materials for new energy vehicles has not yet seen a significant decline.
Take the price of lithium iron phosphate and the core raw materials of ternary batteries - lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide as an example.
According to market data such as Shanghai Nonferrous Metal Network, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate with a purity of 99.5% at the beginning of 2021 was 53,000 yuan / ton, and at the end of the year it was 270,000 yuan / ton, and by April 12 this year, it had risen to 498,000 yuan / ton, an increase of 839.62% during the period, and as of May 5, the average price was 461,500 yuan / ton.
The average price of battery-grade lithium hydroxide (micropowder type) with a purity of 56.5% was 55,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021, and by April 12 this year, it had risen to 499,500 yuan / ton, an increase of 808.18% during the period, and as of May 5, the average price was 477,000 yuan / ton.
If the supply and demand of upstream raw materials are still difficult to achieve balance in the short term, even new energy vehicle giants such as Tesla will eventually face pressure.
The bigger crisis is that Tesla's opponents are getting more and more, and the old rivals are also running hard.
On the evening of April 3, Tesla's biggest rival BYD officially announced the suspension of fuel vehicle production, showing its ambitions in the field of new energy vehicles.
Nowadays, in addition to bydir, new car-making forces and other players in the diversion market, traditional car companies, whether it is international car companies such as BBA, Volkswagen, Toyota or Chinese car companies such as SAIC, Geely and Great Wall, are accelerating the transformation of electrification and entering the new energy vehicle market.
Relevant data show that in 2021, the Porsche Taycan delivered 7315 vehicles in the Chinese market, and the global sales volume reached 41296 vehicles, more than double that of 2020, and even surpassed the classic Porsche 911. You know, the price of porsche Taycan is not cheap, starting from 880,000 yuan at the entry level, more than 1.8 million yuan in the top, and the average price is million yuan.
According to data released by Volkswagen China, the cumulative sales volume of volkswagen ID series in China in 2021 was 70,625 vehicles. In addition, in 2021, bmw group pure electric vehicle sales exceeded 100,000 units, an increase of 133% year-on-year.
In fact, the diversion effect brought about by the increase in competitors has been reflected in Tesla's market share in recent years. In 2019 and 2020, Tesla's global market share was 17% and 16%, respectively. In 2021, although Tesla's global market share of electric vehicles still ranks first, its market share has dropped to 14.4%.
At present, Tesla still does not have a "second leg" to support the company's progress. For example, Tesla has shown dew as early as 2015, and in 2019, it is more likely to stay at the "story" level.
At present, the automobile industry is striding from the era of fuel vehicles to the era of new energy, which is an opportunity for Teslas, but under the general trend, the development window period belonging to Tesla and other new car-making forces is also shortening, and the current good results are not enough to make Tesla sit back and relax.
*The title image in the text comes from: Visual China, based on RF protocol.