Due to the impact of the epidemic, the sales of global car companies have experienced a significant decline. However, Tesla not only fulfilled its Q4 sales commitment in 2019, but also accompanied by a soaring stock price, making CEO Musk the world’s richest man. According to financial analysts, institutions shorting Tesla this year lost at least $38 billion, while those shorting Apple only lost $7 billion.

(Global market value of auto companies, data on January 28, 2020)

On January 28, 2021 Beijing time, Tesla announced its 2020 Q4 financial report. The main data are as follows:

  • A total of 180,667 vehicles were delivered, an increase of 29.4% month-on-month and 71% year-on-year;

  • Total revenue was US$10.744 billion, an increase of 22.5% month-on-month and an increase of 46% year-on-year;

  • Operating profit was US$575 million, a decrease of 28.9% from the previous month and a year-on-year increase of 60%;

  • Net profit was US$270 million (GAAP), a decrease of 18.4% from the previous month and a year-on-year increase of 157%;

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  • Free cash flow was US$1.868 billion, an increase of 33.9% month-on-month and an increase of 84% year-on-year;

  • Cash and cash equivalents were 19.384 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 33.4% from the previous month and a year-on-year increase of 209%;

Although Tesla’s various financial reports are very good, due to the recent turbulence in the US stock market and earnings per share that did not meet the expectations of Wall Street analysts, Tesla’s stock price fell to about $820 per share after the market.

make another record

Total production in 2020Q4 Teslap>

This is just the beginning

The Model S/X update will increase the purchase of a group of high-end users, but for Tesla, this is not the main purpose. Behind this facelift, Tesla’s true advantage is actually more prominent, and it is also an advantage that has always been mentioned but is not valued-always evolving.

For Chinese consumers, most people’s perceptions of Tesla have reached a consensus with repeated price cuts-wait for the party to win. The reason is that both the selling price and the comprehensive product capabilities of Tesla vehicles are changing at an extremely fast rate over time.

From the hundreds of updates to the AP system, to some optimizations and upgrades to the vehicles produced every quarter, to the test version of the FSD Beta in just 2 months, nearly 20 updates and optimizations. Whether it’s Tesla’s production process or the continuous iteration of software, consumers have already felt very strongly how fast Tesla is “evolving”.

For example, the one-piece die-cast body of Model Y that will be delivered in the first quarter of 2020. Although the world’s largest die-casting machine has been used, the original 70-component composition has been upgraded to only two components, but only In the past six months, the current Model Y integrated die-casting body only needs one piece.

Perhaps the intuitive perception that it brings to consumers is not strong, but the cost reduction and production speed behind it represent a disguised increase in the competitiveness of Tesla models.

If you say that the most intuitive change that users can feel, it is the ability to drive automatically. The rewritten AP system has collected a large number of test users’ driving information after pushing the FSD Beta, and has been iteratively updated, and its development speed is very amazing. For example, in the figure below, the FSD knows that the vehicle on the right is a parking waiting vehicle, and then detours; the second scenario is that the road is blocked by a postal vehicle, and the AP system determines that it takes the road to overtake.

If the multi-dimensional upgrade of vehicle hardware and software is to increase product power, then Musk’s innovation and improvement of manufacturing is to increase competitiveness. (Reduce costs and prepare for lower prices).

Currently, the Shanghai plant has an annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles. At the same time, the Berlin plant in Germany will soon be completed for test production, and the Austin plant in Texas, USA is also under rapid construction.

(Tesla Shanghai Factory)

(Tesla Berlin factory)

(Tesla Austin Factory)

In addition to the production line, the 4680 battery production line next to Tesla’s headquarters already has a production capacity of 10GWh and will reach a production capacity of 100GWh in 2022. The speed of mass production of Model S/X, Semi Truck, Roadster, and Cybertruck in the future will depend on the production capacity of these batteries. Musk said that the production line is optimizing each production process every day to improve efficiency to ensure the fastest production of the required batteries.

However, it will take about 3-4 years to meet all the standards promised by “Battery Day”.

The reason why Tesla has just started is based on Tesla’s current solid funding and operations, and constantly strengthening its own competitiveness. Judging from the current stage only, both Model S/X and Model 3/Y are extremely popular in the market.

Especially after the domestic version of Model Y went on sale, consumers were almost frantically rushing to buy the model; my colleague was two days late to make a reservation, and it is now possible to get the car in the second quarter. In other words, the party can indeed wait for a more “affordable” Tesla option, but whether it is market response or user feedback, Tesla’s current competitiveness in the field of electric vehicles is unquestionable, as long as there is an intention to purchase For users of electric vehicles, Tesla’s appeal is huge enough. (About why Model Y is so competitive, please look forward to the experience video of “Start TV” at station b tomorrow)

Musk said in the conference call that the sales target for 2021 will be 50% higher than that of 2020, which is 750,000; I personally think that this number is actually quite impressive. From the current sales trend, although The impact of Model Y has impacted part of the sales of Model 3, but the sales of Model 3 are still on the rise, and with the growing user base, coupled with the increasing impact of Tesla FSD, Tesla Hopefully, it will continue to achieve higher sales in 2021.

Tesla has experienced many external pressures such as the previous industry questioning, the suppression of oil power, the questioning of consumers, the questioning of the capital market, and its own mass production hell, productionMany internal pressures such as quality problems caused by lack of experience; finally gradually moving towards a stable development stage in 2020, so Tesla did not reach a peak in 2020, but has just begun.

at the end

In 2014, Fox Business once interviewed Musk and asked him, “When the super factory is finally completed, the future sales of Tesla are expected.”

Musk replied: “I think it shouldn’t be difficult to reach 500,000 vehicles per year around 2020.”

Excerpt from Musk’s answer to the conference call:

  1. FSD will bring Tesla about 5 times the revenue in the future.

  2. The 4680 battery will not be produced in other factories in the short term, and will be produced by Tesla itself for the time being.

  3. The laws and regulations of different countries are different. Autonomous driving in Europe is limited to L3, while China is relatively open and gradually accepts L4 and L5 tests, so the time for FSD all over the world to finally be realized Will be pushed according to local conditions.

  4. As for next-generation chips, there is still a lot of surplus in the computing power of FSD chips. We are confident that fully automated driving can be realized on FSD1.0 hardware. Performance of the next generation FSD2.0It will be 3 times 1.0, and the sensor will be upgraded at that time. Based on our multiple cameras combined into videos for annotation and neural network training, FSD will evolve and upgrade very quickly.

  5. Semi Truck is likely to become Tesla’s first vehicle with fully automatic driving.