Tesla said on Wednesday it made a profit of $3.3 billion in the first three months of the year, up from $438 million a year earlier, but the company also said it expected its factories to be below the market for the rest of 2022. capacity would run.
The electric car maker said its first quarter revenue was $18.8 billion, up from $10.4 billion a year earlier. Earnings significantly exceeded investor expectations.
Tesla was the fastest-growing major automaker last year, nearly doubling sales to nearly a million vehicles as the industry as a whole collapsed. New plants near Austin, Texas and Berlin position the company to repeat that growth this year — if it can overcome some serious challenges.
These include a shortage of semiconductors that has plagued automakers for more than a year. Tesla has also had to close its factory in Shanghai over China’s draconian efforts to contain the coronavirus. China accounted for a quarter of Tesla sales last year, and the Shanghai plant also exports cars to other countries in Asia and Europe.
Tesla said Wednesday it had resumed “limited production” in Shanghai after a three-week shutdown. But it warned it still faced “ongoing” supply chain problems and rising raw material costs.
“Our own factories have been under capacity for several quarters as the supply chain became the main limiting factor, and will likely remain the rest of 2022,” Tesla said in a statement.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a conference call on Wednesday that his “best guess” was that Tesla would produce 1.5 million cars this year, meeting the company’s goal of growing sales of 50 percent. percent per year.
Analysts are concerned that supply chain and manufacturing issues, which Tesla managed to avoid last year better than other automakers, could hinder the company’s growth this year.
“A robust demand story for Tesla is overshadowed by brutal manufacturing problems in China and a Rubik’s cube supply chain that continues to haunt Tesla and the rest of the auto/tech industry,” Wedbush Securities analysts said in a press release. note to customers ahead of Tesla’s first quarter earnings announcement.
Tesla remains by far the largest manufacturer of battery-powered cars. In the first three months of 2022, 310,000 vehicles were sold, an increase of almost 70 percent from a year earlier. But traditional automakers like Volkswagen, Ford Motor and Hyundai Motor have woken up to the threat and have started selling models that challenge Tesla’s dominance.
There’s also a risk that Mr. Musk could alienate some car buyers with his high-profile offer to buy Twitter. Some potential clients may applaud Musk as a champion of free speech, but others may fear he will open up Twitter to hate speech and misinformation.
