Tesla made record profit in 2021, will not come with new models this year

Tesla made a record profit of $5.5 billion last year. The company reports this in its quarterly figures. The company delivered almost twice as many cars in 2021 as the year before. The company expects another increase next year.

However, Tesla will not introduce new models next year, CEO Elon Musk reports in an explanation by the quarterly figures. The reason for this is the chip shortages and the problems in the supply chain, according to the CEO. “We won’t be introducing any new vehicle models this year. It wouldn’t make sense because we’d still be limited in parts,” Musk said. The chief executive says overall output would drop if the company introduced a new model.

The CEO does indicate that it will continue to work on the Cybertruck, Semi and Roadster, among others. The company hopes to start producing those vehicles next year. Despite not introducing new models in 2022, Musk does indicate that he expects growth that “is comfortably above 50 percent”. Currently, the company carries equipment tests at its new factories in Texas and Berlin, where it plans to produce the Model Y. The first models from the Texan factory are almost finished, according to the company. Tesla expects to deliver those models after they are certified.

Musk also expects the ‘Full Self-Driving’ software package to become Tesla’s ‘main source of income’ in the long term. Tesla vehicles are equipped with the hardware to drive independently, but users must purchase that package separately. The CEO speaks about robot taxis; In the long run, the company wants to offer self-driving Teslas as taxis. At the moment that is not possible, because Teslas are not yet able to drive fully autonomously without any input from humans. Musk says in the explanation of his quarterly figures that the company expects to achieve that ‘this year’. However, the company has previously missed deadlines for this that were predicted by Musk.

Tesla produced 906,032 Model 3 and Model Y cars last year and delivered 911,208 of them, the company already reported earlier this year. That’s about a doubling compared to 2020. The company produced a total of 24,390 of the Model S and X and delivered 24,964 in 2021, which is less than the year before. In total, Tesla delivered 936,172 cars in the past year. That is an increase of 87 percent compared to 2020.

As a result of that growth, Tesla turned a profit for the second year in a row. In total, the company posted net income of $5.5 billion, which is about 4.9 billion euros. Total revenue was $53.8 billion and operating margin was 12.1 percent. Specifically in the fourth quarter of 2021, the company made a profit of 2.3 billion dollars, converted 2 billion euros. Quarterly revenue was $17.7 billion.