Tesla has posted record profits for the first quarter of 2022, defying the forecasts of Wall Street estimates, despite some of its factories running under capacity due to problems in the supply chain.
CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party in Austin, Texas, on April 7, 2022.
The automaker reported revenue of $18.76 billion despite the $17.80 billion forecast by analysts, and its earnings per share were $3.22 compared to the expected $2.26 share.
TSLA stocks also rallied by 5.5 percent after the earnings results were released.
Automotive revenue amassed $16.86 billion, an 87% increase compared to the same period last year. Automotive gross margins were up to a record 32.9%, with Tesla's gross profit at $5.54 billion in its main segment.
In its shareholder deck, Tesla said that its revenue growth was bolstered due to an increase in the number of cars that they have delivered and also from the rise of their average sales prices.
Earlier this month, the automaker reported that the numbers for their Tesla Model 3 and Model Y increased its numbers to as much as 305,000 for its production and 310,000 for its deliveries in the first three months of the year.
Read Also: Tesla 2022 Q1 Report: 'Extremely Difficult' Says Musk, But Deliveries and Production Increased
Excited for Tesla's future
Elon Musk said on the investors call, reported by CNN, that the company should be capable to produce at least 1.5 million vehicles for this year that would constitute a 50% increase from its 2021 output.
But the CEO also cautioned customers that if they are ordering now, they will have to undergo a long waitlist in which some of their orders could only arrive next year.
He is also optimistic that Tesla will carry on its 50% annual growth in the next coming years.
"Basically, the future is very excting. I've never been more optimistic or excited about Tesla's future than I am right now," Musk added.
But the automaker's energy update was not much of good news since their solar deployments went down by almost 50%, coming in at 48 megawatts (MW). Their energy storage deployment of 846 MW hours constituted an increase of over 90% year over year but fell consecutively.
Persistent Supply Chain Challenges
The company said that it remains wary of its supply chain issues since it is deterring its ability to run its factories at full-scale capacity, which could continue through the rest of the year.
In their summary report, the company wrote that "challenges around supply chain have remained persistent" and that their team has been working to navigate these problems for a year.
This is also in light of the lockdown placed in China, which forced the automaker's factory in Shanghai to shut down earlier last month and led to the potential loss in production of over 400,000 Tesla models.
"In addition to chip shortages, recent COVID-19 outbreaks have been weighing on our supply chain and factory operations. Furthermore, prices of some raw materials have increased multiple-fold in recent months," wrote the company in their report.
These problems led to the "inflationary impact" of their cost structure which adjusted the prices of their products even though they were trying to reduce their manufacturing costs.
Although the company has ramped up limited production on their Gigafactories, they said that they are still monitoring the situation closely.
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
