Although it arrives a year late as planned, Tesla can finally say that it has passed the million-car built and delivered barrier. The figures for the last quarter have been spectacular.
Throughout the year we have been able to see how the sales figures approached the milestone of one million units. In the absence of a few thousand at the end of last quarter, the usual push at the end of the year has raised the final figures for 2022 that will go down in history for being the year in which Tesla beat, for the first time, a volume of deliveries seven digits. Annual growth has reached 47%, all this in a year marked by highly unstable markets.
2022 has been a roller coaster for Austinites. They started the year in a very positive way. More than 310,000 deliveries in the first third showed that this was going to be the year of the million cars. Although there have been no major innovations in the fleet, the company has grown considerably in other fields, such as production. Last March, just a couple of weeks apart, Tesla inaugurated the Gigafactories in Berlin, the first on European soil, and in Austin, which has ended up becoming its official headquarters.
With more productive muscle, Tesla boasts some of the busiest final assembly factories in the world. Led by the Shanghai plant, a small pause due to China’s zero COVID policies put the annual target in jeopardy. However, today the Chinese Gigafactory is the most powerful of the entire production network of the company and one of the largest in the world. She alone has been in charge of feeding to a large extent the annual balance of 1,369,611 cars produced, the vast majority corresponding to the Model 3 and Model Y.
More specifically, the family access models have signed 1,298,434 units in all of 2022, which represents 94.8% of the total number of cars produced. The most expensive models, the Tesla Model S and Model X signed 71,177 assemblies. If we go to the sales column, we can see how Tesla has sold less than it has manufactured, something completely normal in the industry. Dealers closed the year with a total of 1,313,851 registered vehicles. Once again the Model 3 and Model Y monopolized almost all the leading roles with 1,247,146 sales, 94.92% of the operations.
In just a couple of weeks, Tesla will take a deeper look at what 2022 means. Although no one can deny the positive effect of sales, great results are not expected financially. In the past 12 months, the company has left 65% of its value on the stock market. At the beginning of January, the Tesla share was trading at the limit of 400 dollars, while today the title barely reaches 123. A substantial deterioration has been caused, to a large extent, by the wayward attitude of its CEO, Elon Musk. The American tycoon has had many open fronts and although the year has not been bad, the markets do not see so much distraction with good eyes.
The 2023 financial year is expected to be very similar to that of 2022. The range will not change much, although important innovations are expected, such as the commercial launch of the Tesla Cybertruck. The electric pick-up will be presented, at least so it is expected, at some point in the first semester. Production will start at that time and although a very high volume is not expected at first, the high number of reservations encourages us to be positive. We’ll see if those from Austin come up with some hidden secret, like the cheap compact that has been rumored for several years.
