Tesla reports 1.31 million deliveries in 2022, growth of 40% over last year
Statista
Tesla just released its fourth-quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers for 2022. In the final quarter of 2022, Tesla produced 439,701 vehicles bringing annual production up to 1.37 million, up 47% from a year ago.
The automaker delivered 405,278 vehicles in Q4, missing the company-compiled consensus estimate of 417,957 deliveries for the quarter and 1.33 million deliveries for the year. Delivery numbers hold a lot of weight for Tesla investors as they are the closest approximation of sales disclosed by the company.
Tesla reported 1.31 million total deliveries in 2022, a growth of 40% over last year. While this growth rate is remarkable, the electric-car maker fell short of its initial goal of increasing annual deliveries by 50%.
In the third quarter of 2022, Tesla wrote: “Over a multi-year horizon we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries. The rate of growth will depend on our equipment capacity, factory uptime, operational efficiency, and the capacity and stability of the supply chain.”
Such a growth rate would have required more than 1.4 million deliveries for the year. Tesla attributes this underperformance to changes in how the company distributes cars to customers. These changes led to more vehicles being in transit to their final destination at the end of the year.
The U.S. tax credit that went into effect in 2023 likely also played a role. Many customers chose to put off their deliveries in late 2022 so that they could benefit from the savings. Tesla eventually offered a discount to compensate customers who would miss out on the tax credit.
Tesla delivery numbers since 2012
Statista
The fourth quarter of 2022 was challenging for Tesla, primarily due to a Covid outbreak in China, which caused a temporary suspension of production at its Shanghai factory. During the fourth quarter, Tesla offered steep discounts and promotions in the U.S., China, and elsewhere to stimulate demand, putting pressure on its margins.
Despite a challenging quarter, Wall Street expects Tesla's 2022 sales growth to raise annual revenue by more than 50% from a year earlier and exceed $82 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Analysts predict that profit will increase more than 100% from 2021 to nearly $13 billion. Tesla's growth this year can be attributed to its two newly built factories in Austin, Texas and Brandenburg, Germany.
Tesla is set to report full fourth-quarter results on January 25th. Additionally, Tesla announced its first-ever Investor Day on March 1st, where the company will discuss its next-generation vehicle platform, among other topics.
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In just 8 months, Tesla has gone from breaking ground to delivering electrons at its most ambitious Supercharger project to date, just in time to be ready for the busy Fourth of July holiday weekend. Project Oasis, the world’s largest Supercharger site, is now partially open to customers for its first phase in Lost Hills, California.
What makes this remarkable is the speed of execution. In just eight months, Tesla has constructed a site that will eventually feature 168 stalls (84 stalls are now open), supported by 11 MW of solar power and 10 Megapacks of battery storage. That construction speed is pretty impressive, but what is even more impressive is how this new station operates and what it means for future Supercharging infrastructure.
Self-Sufficient Energy Oasis
Not a Tesla App
The first 84 stalls at Lost Hills are now open, and according to the Tesla Charging team, they are currently powered solely by the sun and operate off-grid.
This makes it more than just a new Supercharger site. It serves as a proof of concept for a new type of Supercharger. Unlike nearly every other charging site in the world, which draws power from local utilities, this station generates its own clean electricity from its massive solar array and stores it in its array of on-site Megapacks.
Self-sufficient charging stations are something completely different than what we see today. They are highly resilient since they’re not reliant on the grid. That means that even if there is a local power outage, brownout, or blackout, one can always come to Lost Hills to Supercharge.
If you’ve got a Cybertruck, you could take advantage of the Cybertruck’s Powershare feature and charge up at Lost Hills to help keep your home powered during a blackout, utilizing the Cybertruck as a portable battery charger. Now that’s true independence and self-reliance.
The Future of Charging
Solar-powered Superchargers help avoid massive new loads on already stressed electrical grids, especially during peak afternoon and evening hours, when demand is the highest.
This is Tesla’s vision for the future of charging: a clean, fully closed-loop ecosystem that sustains itself. The sun’s energy is captured, stored, and delivered directly to vehicles on site at any time of day without relying on the electrical grid or fossil fuels.
Largest Supercharger in the World
This opening of 84 stalls is just the first phase of the project. Tesla says that the remaining stalls, as well as a new on-site lounge, are coming later this year. Once complete, the 168-stall site will be the largest Supercharger site in the world.
While the speed of building such a massive project in just eight months is a testament to Tesla’s execution, the true innovation is actually that self-sustainability. Let’s hope we see even more large, self-sufficient Supercharger sites across the world in the near future.
Elon Musk is once again seeking to expand Tesla’s vertical integration in the energy sector, this time focusing squarely on solar power. Following discussions on X that highlighted the massive gap in solar deployments between the US and China, Elon is now discussing the need for a Tesla Solar Gigafactory in the United States.
This potential move is driven by a specific catalyst: the exponential growth of AI is creating an insatiable demand for electricity. For Tesla and xAI, two of Elon’s companies betting their future on AI, building the power generation required is a strategic necessity.
A new factory wouldn’t just be about making panels; it would be about manufacturing the final missing piece in Tesla’s vertically integrated energy ecosystem.
Maybe there should be a solar Gigafactory in America
The context for this renewed focus is pretty stark. In May, China reportedly added a staggering 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity. In contrast, the United States installed approximately 14 GW over the entire first quarter, roughly 20 times less than China.
The primary driver of this demand is the revolution in AI. Training ever-larger and smarter AI models involves operating vast data centers, which consume staggering amounts of power. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have turned to small-scale nuclear reactors, with Microsoft petitioning to reopen the infamous Three Mile Island for its AI operations.
For Elon’s companies, whose future products like FSD, Optimus, and Grok are built on a foundation of real-world AI, securing a massive and sustainable energy supply isn’t a side quest. It is part of the main mission, especially in conjunction with grid-scale storage, such as Megapacks and Powerwalls. You can’t power a world of autonomous robots without a world of abundant, clean energy.
The Tesla Ecosystem
A US solar gigafactory would be the final, logical step in completing Tesla’s energy hardware ecosystem. While Tesla already manufactures some solar panels and the Tesla solar roof, the scale is too minuscule to matter.
By mass-producing its own panels, while also increasing Solar Roof production, Tesla would become a true one-stop shop for all things green energy. This would allow the company to supply its own large-scale projects, like the massive solar array for Project Oasis - the world’s largest Supercharger site.
It would also enable more complete residential packages, like the Giga-Small Haus concept home, combining Tesla-made panels and roofs with a Powerwall 3. This level of vertical integration would give Tesla complete control over the technology, cost, and supply of every major component in its energy ecosystem, from generation to storage to mobility.
Building a new Solar Gigafactory is about much more than just simply producing solar panels. It’s a requirement to power Tesla’s future products and make solar panels accessible to everyone.
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