It seems that Tesla remains unfazed by the ongoing demand weakness, one that caused the company to miss consensus delivery estimates for the last quarter of 2022. The specter of a global recession, increased competition from Western and Chinese EV manufacturers, and the brand damage from Elon Musk’s Twitter-related antics do not appear to be a factor in Tesla’s production capacity calculus.
— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) January 11, 2023 To wit, as per the news that is just hitting the tapes, Tesla is nearing a deal to set up a factory in Indonesia that will feature a production capacity of 1 million units per annum. Since Indonesia has one of the largest reserves of Nickel in the world, currently estimated to be at around 21 million tons, it makes sense for the EV giant to incorporate this resource into its sprawling supply chain by building a Giga Indonesia. Bear in mind that Indonesia has already established a goal to increase the market share of EVs to 20 percent by 2025. For reference, Tesla’s Giga Shanghai has a production capacity of 750,000 units per annum. The company’s total installed capacity is currently around 1.9 million units per annum (as of October 2022). Of course, Tesla is also exploring the possibility of establishing another factory in Mexico. Meanwhile, the EV giant recently filed to implement a $700 million expansion at Giga Austin.
Please God, let this be true! https://t.co/pimioEE2uQ — Stanphyl Capital ❌ (@StanphylCap) January 11, 2023 As stated earlier, Tesla recently disclosed that it delivered 405,278 units in Q4 2022, missing pared-down consensus expectations of 418,000 units. The EV giant managed to produce 439,701 units in the pertinent quarter. For the entire FY 2022, Tesla has recorded cumulative deliveries of 1,313,851 units. Bear in mind that Tesla has continued to maintain over the past few quarters that it will grow its annual deliveries by 50 percent for the foreseeable future. Based on these quarterly numbers, Tesla was only able to grow its annual deliveries by 40.3 percent in 2022, missing its stated guidance by a wide margin.
No disclosure on US sales, so let’s look at the EU & China: EU: Dec sales -25% YoY; -35% for 2022 YTDChina: Dec sales -78% YoY; -21% YTD US leases coming back in droves this year. $TSLAQ — Motorhead (@BradMunchen) January 11, 2023 For comparison, BYD – the biggest EV producer in China – was able to deliver 111,939 EVs in December alone. Moreover, as per the data of insured vehicles released by China’s CPCA for the first week of January 2023, NIO earned 1.239 billion Yuan in revenue, just behind Li Auto and BYD. Tesla only managed to earn 645.66 million Yuan in the first week of January in China. Many analysts now believe that a $30,000 model is crucial if Tesla is to retain its competitive edge in the market.
