by Klaus Schachinger, Euro on Sunday
Tesla boss Elon Musk is back in the spotlight on the stock exchange. With a new record number of car deliveries in one quarter – 308,600 Teslas rolled out of the yard in the fourth quarter – the electric car manufacturer has also exceeded the highest expectations of the analysts. On average, the estimated 263,000 cars. The new record number gave the share double-digit percentage increases in value at the beginning of the year. Tesla was again maneuvered into the exclusive club of the world’s five companies with at least a trillion dollar market value. Tesla had set the previous record of 241,300 cars in the previous quarter.
Tesla obviously has better control of what has been slowing down the entire auto industry for some time, the ongoing bottlenecks in supply of chips, even if Musk calls the bottlenecks “a nightmare”. Because the Californian group, which moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, for tax reasons, delivered 936,000 cars in 2021, 87 percent more than in the previous year. It is the strongest growth since 2018. Tesla plans to open new plants in Austin and Berlin this year.
In the global automotive industry, market researcher IHS Markit estimates the drop in deliveries due to the shortage of chips at one percent. Compared to 2019, before the pandemic, it should be 15 percent less.
Advantage own software
Thanks to its own software expertise, Tesla was able to quickly replace chips with supply bottlenecks with others by rewriting the programs it had developed in the vehicles, Musk says. Traditional car manufacturers such as Toyota, VW or Daimler have so far mainly obtained their chips from suppliers. Tesla, on the other hand, as a pioneer for electric cars, not only writes a lot of software itself, but as a company from Silicon Valley also has a direct line to chip companies and presents its own chip designs. For example, the carmaker developed the computer for controlling the driver assistance systems in the new models itself. “For this, direct contact with a semiconductor company is necessary,” says Nakul Duggal, head of the automotive supply division of chip developer QUALCOMM.
In addition, unlike conventional manufacturers, the car company did not cancel chip orders during the panic phase at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. One reason may be that Tesla’s production is only a fraction of the quantities produced by VW and Co. In the chip industry, however, this step was well received and is now paying off.
Cost per vehicle reduced
Tesla has also made very good progress on the cost per vehicle, reports analyst Emmanuel Rosner from Deutsche Bank. Average spend per car in the third quarter was $36,000 compared to $54,000 three years earlier, although prices per kilowatt-hour of battery power have remained relatively constant during that time, according to Rosner.
Tesla has increased efficiency in its factories, built its Shanghai plant in record time and improved material logistics, Rosner lists a few aspects.
Strength: Despite the stock’s high valuation, the good news boosted the share price significantly. For risk takers.
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Image Credits: Joshua Lott/Getty Images, JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images
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