Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai has been gaining more and more relevance during the last months and it’s already the main Tesla’s export hub, previously located in Fremont, California. Giga Shangai represented around 50% of Tesla’s global production with 473,078 out of 936,000 units. Last December, Tesla hit a new record of sales plus exports of Made-in-China Model 3/Model Y in December 2021 by 70,847 units.
At the moment, Tesla is supplying cars (Model 3 and Model Y) to Europe from Giga Shanghai. As the German Tesla factory is expected to open soon, European cars are being shipped in from Shanghai start hitting markets around mid quarter, with most sales occurring in the last month of the quarter, creating weird results when comparing monthly deliveries in Europe. The opening of Giga Berlin — expected for late Q1/ early Q2 — will change the situation with quickly and easier exports. (Check the chart below)
According to a Tesla Motors Club Member, the last Q1 ship will leave for Europe no later than around 18 Feb in order to allow for a 4 week transit to Zeebrugge and then a (hectic) delivery push in the last 10 days or so of March.
“It is logical then to expect to see a large number of export models for the UK/EU market to be clogging the Chinese production lines in January and early February. This explains the feast or famine nature of Tesla logistics. Elon has promised his staff that he will try to suppress the end of quarter wave. To an extent he has already succeeded in this – by moving all export production to China, the US domestic supply is now much more even throughout the quarter. For Europe, had Berlin come online when originally planned, the sombrero would have been flattened by 2022 Q1. Sadly, Berlin is late and so as a result I think the end of quarter push will continue to be a feature in Q1 (and probably Q2).” — the member added.
To reach specific info on the shipping process, there’s the Tesla Carriers spreadsheet created with various sources. The member said that “we can expect to see about 13 boatloads to Europe in Q1” loaded with 4,000 — 4,500 vehicles each one which makes a total of 58,000 vehicles from Giga Shangai.
Tesla has currently two electric car plants running (Giga Texas and Giga Shangai, in China) and two new plants waiting for final approval, Giga Berlin (Germany) and Giga Texas. Meanwhile, Elon Musk said during Earnings Conference Call that the company “will be looking for a new location for additional EV production in the future”.
“Equipment testing through the vehicle production process started late 2021. We are still in the process of finalizing the manufacturing permit from local authorities, which will allow us to start delivering German-made vehicles in Europe.”
Tesla on Giga Berlin
On January 11th, China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) announced that Giga Shangai was responsible for the production of 473,078 EVs, including 70,847 in December. If the pace rate maintain during 2022, there’s a potential output of about 850,000 units per year, a higher pace rate than initially expected by Tesla for the factory.
“Production of both Model 3 and Model Y continued to ramp further throughout 2021. Local production is essential for reducing the cost per vehicle and improving the stability of the global supply chain. Gigafactory Shanghai continues to be our main export hub.”
Tesla
The company aims to up its volume by some 50% in 2022, and it made it clear it could potentially do so without its two new factories coming online suggesting the possibility of a +200% increase on the deliveries in only 2 years.
According to JATO Dynamics data for 28 European markets, the European automotive market continued to deteriorate in December 2021. Meanwhile, Tesla sold a total of 35,239 vehicles (27,358 Model 3) in Europe during December, an increase of 11% when compared to December 2020 and +24% higher than 2020. This result brings Tesla a market share of 3.71%, up from 2.23% during the same period in 2020.
Tesla registered 167,969 vehicles during 2021, an increase of 70.9% from 2020 and 51% up from 2019. During the year, Tesla sold 26,175 Tesla Model Y, 134 Tesla Model S and 230 Tesla Model X in the European Market.
Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics commented: “Tesla has weathered the current crisis in Europe’s automotive industry better than any other OEM.” The Model 3 led the model rankings while the Model Y also secured a place in the top 40 in December. The success of these two models alone has allowed Tesla to outsell established brands including Kia (12 models available), Citroen (10), and Fiat (7).
Last week, during Tesla’s Earnings setting new records, the company said: “We aim to increase our production as quickly as we can, not only through ramping production at new factories in Austin and Berlin, but also by maximizing output from our established factories in Fremont and Shanghai.”
Revenue rose 65% year over year in the quarter, while net income, at $2.32 billion, was up some 760%, according to Tesla’s statement. The company says they have successfully increased the number of FSD Beta vehicles from a couple of thousand in Q3 to nearly 60,000 vehicles in the US today.
“Our own factories have been running below capacity for several quarters as supply chain became the main limiting factor, which is likely to continue through 2022,” the company said.
Earlier this month, Tesla announced that deliveried 308,600 vehicles in Q4, setting a new record during the last Quarter. In 2021, Tesla delivered a total of 936,172 vehicles in 2021, crushing all the expectations.
During Q4 2020, the company delivered about 181,000 vehicles and Wall Street was looking for about 176,000 vehicles to be delivered at the time of the release. The result was about a 3% beat versus expectations. This quarter, Wall Street expectations were on 275,000 units, which means Tesla beat by more than 12%.
Moody’s expect that Tesla will deliver nearly 1.4 million vehicles in 2022, up from about 936,000 in 2021.