EqualOcean was informed that Tesla announced its second-quarter financial results on July 19, with total revenue of USD 24.927 billion, up 47% YOY, better than market expectations; gross margin fell to 18.19%, operating margin fell to 9.62%, and net profit was about USD 2.7 billion, up 20%. Foreign media said that Tesla's revenue and profit in the second quarter were better than analysts' expectations, and the main reasons include the reduction of raw material prices.
From April to June this year, Tesla delivered 466,140 electric cars and produced 479,700 units. Musk revealed on the earnings call that the Shanghai factory is running at near full capacity, so there won't be a significant increase in production capacity in the coming months, and that capacity is expected to "decline slightly" in the third quarter due to a number of seasonal disruptions. In addition, he said he would be willing to lower prices for electric vehicles again during "turbulent times. Although that would hurt the company's gross margin, Musk said he would be willing to sacrifice gross margin for revenue growth. Tesla shares fell nearly 5 percent after Musk's comments.
According to Reuters, Tesla's gross margin on automotive products fell to 18.1 percent in the second quarter from 19 percent in the first quarter, a figure in line with market expectations but significantly lower than the 26 percent recorded in the same period last year.
Tesla reiterated its goal of delivering 1.8 million vehicles by 2023. However, it said that production would be down slightly in the third quarter due to factory shutdowns for upgrades.
Regarding FSD Autopilot, Musk said on the call that he is in talks with a major OEM about licensing FSD's Full Self-Driving software, but did not name the company. He also revealed that Tesla will increase its spending on artificial intelligence, using both NVIDIA GPUs and Dojo supercomputing, and Musk said they are "committed to being at the forefront of artificial intelligence development."
The company said Wednesday that lower raw material costs for lithium and aluminum and government tax credits have helped reduce costs, but operating expenses have increased due to Cybertruck, artificial intelligence projects and increased production of 4680 batteries. The company has made "significant progress" in increasing production on the 4680 line. According to Tesla, 4680 battery production in Texas was up 80 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, and the Texas team is focused on increasing production and reducing waste as it prepares to roll out Cybertruck for mass production by the end of the year.