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05:57Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Tesla's first quarter 2022 Q&A webcast
06:01My name is Martin Vieja, VP of Industry Relations, and I'm joined today by Elon Musk, Zachary Kirkhorn, and a number of other executives
06:08Our Q1 results were announced at about 3 p.m
06:10Central Time, in the update that we published at the same link as this webcast
06:14During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements
06:19These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of now
06:23Today’s actual events and results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC
06:33During the question and answer portion of today’s call, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up
06:39Please use the raise hand button to join the question queue before we jump into Q&A
06:45Zach will have some opening remarks
06:48Zach, yeah, thanks, Martin
06:53Um, just to start off, Q1 was a challenging but extremely successful quarter for the company, despite numerous supply interruptions, including shutdowns at our Shanghai Factory and nearby suppliers due to COVID
07:05They have continued making progress and achieved our best ever vehicle deliveries
07:11Last quarter, we demonstrated a series of new financial records, including revenue, gross margins, operating margin, and bottom-line profitability
07:20Gap automotive gross margin reached 32.9 percent and, for the first time, exceeded 30 percent when excluding regulatory credits
07:28Higher pricing continues to positively impact our financials as we make progress delivering cars and our growing backlog
07:35Note that, for most vehicles, our delivery wait times are quite long; thus, cars delivered in Q1 generally carried pricing set in prior quarters and at levels lower than cars being ordered today
07:47Our per-unit vehicle cost increased as well; inflation, raw material prices, logistics costs, and expedite costs continue to impact our margins
07:55Cost structure: Factory shutdowns also occurred with little to no notice; hence, we are unable to take action to plan for those interruptions in a cost-efficient manner
08:04Additionally, we saw a slight mix shift towards more profitable vehicles, including the Model Y
08:10We also recognized a one-time benefit of 288 million dollars from credit revenue relating to a regulatory change in the U.S
08:15CAFE penalty, without which credit revenue would have declined compared to the same period last year
08:24The energy business has continued to be impacted by macro conditions more severely than the vehicle business
08:28Our storage products are in need of chip supply, and new import processes have impacted the supply of certain components for our… Solar systems, which is reflected in our Solar volume for the quarter, topics as a percentage of revenue continues to decrease, driven by higher revenue, lower stock-based compensation expense, and other items
08:48As a result of our ongoing improvements and operating leverage, we achieved a record operating margin of over 19 percent
08:57Note that commissioning costs for our factories are R&D, as Berlin started production in late March and Austin in early April
09:03These costs will be considered automotive costs going forward, now that these factories are producing customer-sellable cars
09:09Our free cash flows have remained quite strong, yet were impacted by working capital related to lower-than-planned production
09:17Additionally, we have reduced our..
09:19Debt, excluding product financing, is nearing zero
09:23Looking ahead in the immediate term, a few things to keep in mind for Q2
09:28First, we've lost about a month of building volume at our factory in Shanghai due to COVID-related shutdowns
09:34Production is resuming at limited levels, and we're working to get back to full production as quickly as possible
09:37This will impact total build and delivery volume in Q2
09:43Second, as I’ve mentioned before, Austin and Berlin are just starting their ramps, and thus those inefficiencies will begin to impact our gross margins in Q2
09:51Third, we do have higher ASPs in our backlog, which will help to offset some of these headwinds
09:57We continue to drive toward further strengthening of our financials in the upcoming period
10:01Second half of the year, and we believe our 50 percent or above growth rate remains achievable for the year
10:07I want to conclude by thanking the Tesla team, our suppliers, and our new customers for a great first quarter
10:11Thank you very much
10:15And Elon Musk, opening remarks as well? Sure
10:18So my remarks will be somewhat redundant with Elon’s, but it's maybe worth repeating: Q1 was once again a record quarter on many levels, reaching the highest deliveries, profit, and an operating margin of 19 percent
10:32This was despite a lot of chip shortages, many logistics challenges, and an overall difficult quarter
10:41So I’d really like to congratulate the Tesla team on achieving record profitability and output despite many headwinds
10:55Especially the Tesla, uh, Tesla China team in our Shanghai Factory
11:02They really faced significant challenges due to the COVID shutdowns, and nonetheless, have been able to output a tremendous number of high-quality vehicles
11:12We are already back up and running with the Shanghai Factory
11:21So, as Zach said, we remain confident of a 50% growth in vehicle production in 2022 versus 2021
11:35I think we actually have a reasonable shot at a 60% increase over last year
11:46Let's see
11:57Obviously, as people know, with Giga Berlin and Giga Texas in the past few months, we have two fantastic factories with great teams that are ramping rapidly, now with new factories in initial stages
12:08Ramp always looks small, but it grows exponentially
12:10So, I've very high confidence in the teams at both factories, and we expect to ramp those initially slowly, but, as I said, growing exponentially, with them achieving high volume by the end of this year
12:40We're also working on a new vehicle that I alluded to at the Giga Texas opening, which is a dedicated RoboTaxi that is highly optimized for autonomy, meaning it would not have a steering wheel or pedals
13:00There are a number of other innovations around it that I think are quite exciting
13:06But it's fundamentally optimized for, and trying to achieve, the lowest, fully considered cost per mile or cost per kilometer
13:17Accounting everything, um, and I think it's going to be a very powerful product where we aspire to reach full body production of that in 2024
13:34I think that will really be a massive driver of Tesla's growth, and we remain on track to reach volume production of the Cybertruck next year
13:43Let's see
13:53Um, so it's basically, uh, but once again, I'd like to thank the Tesla employees for their hard work, but also I'd like to thank our suppliers who have really gone the extra mile
14:03They have, uh, we have an amazing supplier group, and I wouldn't say a heartfelt thanks to the suppliers that have really worked day and night to ensure that Tesla is able to keep the factories running, and we're really at the early stage
14:22Of our journey, we only crossed one million units in the past 12 months, and we are aspiring to reach 22 million units a year
14:36We're basically five percent along the way toward our goal, and we are growing very rapidly year over year
14:47We remain confident of exceeding 50% annual growth for the foreseeable future, for several years to come
15:10And then there's, of course, Optimus, which I was surprised that people did not realize the magnitude of the Optimus robot program
15:21The importance of Optimus will become apparent in the coming years
15:25Those who are insightful or listening carefully will understand that
15:36Optimus ultimately will be worth more than the vehicle itself, more than FSD—that's my firm belief
15:47And then, of course, the insurance business is growing well
15:56We expect to address the part shortages that limited our progress with batteries and solar
16:06We expect batteries and solar to also grow well this year
16:11Basically, the future is very exciting
16:13I've never been more optimistic or excited about Tesla's future than I am right now
16:19Thank you, thank you very much
16:20Let's go to the first investor question
16:22The first investor question is: Elon has historically provided FSD timelines with not optimal accuracy
16:29We would love to see more optimism for a 2022 release, but is there any data or tests I can share with investors to...? Help them make their own conclusions on progress being made, interventions per mile driven, or any other data
16:42Sure
16:44Um, well, with respect to full self-driving or any technology development I've ever been involved in, I've never really seen more false stones or where it seems like we're going to break through, but we don't, as I’ve seen in full self-driving
17:03And ultimately, what it comes down to is that to sell full self-driving, you actually have to solve real-world artificial intelligence, which is something nobody has solved
17:14The whole road system is made for biological neural networks and eyes, so actually, when you think about it, in order to achieve full self-driving, we have to solve neural networks
17:32Cameras, to a degree of capability that is on par with, and orderlessly exceeds, humans
17:36I think we will achieve that this year
17:47The best way to reach your own assessment is to join the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program, where we currently have over a hundred thousand people enrolled, and we expect to broaden that significantly this year
17:59So, that's my recommendation: join the Full Self-Driving beta program, experience it for yourself, and take note of the rate of improvement with each release
18:12We release a new version roughly every two weeks, so you'll see a little bit of two steps forward, one step back, but overall, the rate of improvement is incredibly rapid
18:31That's my..
18:33The recommendation for reaching your own assessment is literally to try it
18:46Thank you
18:58The second question is, how much of an impact will the production shutdown in Shanghai have in Q2? What is the timeline for localizing the Model 3 in Europe, or will new Model Y or Model 3 vehicles be prioritized in Berlin? But yeah, we did lose a lot of important days of production, and there are sort of upstream supplier challenges where large suppliers also lost many days of production
19:11However, our Tesla Shanghai facility is coming back with a vengeance
19:18So I'm confident that, no matter what new issues arise, we will see record output per week from Shanghai this quarter, albeit we are currently missing a few days
19:31Couple of weeks, so, you know, that means the most likely vehicle production in Q2 will be similar to Q1, maybe slightly lower, but it's also possible we may pull a rabbit out of the hat and be slightly higher
19:41But, it's, we call it roughly on par
19:51However, Q3 and Q4 will be substantially higher
20:00So, it seems likely that we'll be able to produce over one and a half million cars this year
20:10That's my best guess
20:14In the Model 3, it's important for new factories to be focused on and have the least amount of complexity and variation, which is why Giga Texas is focused on the Model Y
20:31It's from the point of which you have a factory complete and you're making a small..
20:40The number of units, up to the point where it's producing high-quality vehicles in volume, is roughly nine to 12 months from the start of production
21:00So now, hopefully, we're getting better at that round, so it may give us a little less, but to get to the level of around 5,000 a week, it typically takes us about 12 months from startup of production
21:21Yes, thank you
21:24The next question is, how much raw material exposure do you have, measured roughly as a percentage of cost of goods sold, for example in a given quarter versus one to two years out, both direct and indirect separately? How do you think about price increases versus prioritizing higher mixed vehicles going forward? Actually, on the price increase front, I should..
21:46We mention that it may seem like we're being unreasonable about increasing the prices of our vehicles, given that we had record profitability this quarter
21:54However, the waitlist for our vehicles is quite long, and some of the vehicles that people will order have waitlists extending into next year
22:05So, our prices for all vehicles ordered now are really anticipating supplier and logistics cost growth that we were aware of or believe will happen over the next six to twelve months
22:26That's why we have the price increases today, because the cars ordered now will, in some cases, arrive a year from now
22:32We have a very long waitlist, and we're obviously not demand limited
22:42We are production limited by very much for certain
22:44Production limited raw material exposure
22:52Yeah, just to add to what Elon is saying, you know, there are different ways to calculate raw material exposure
23:00Um, I think the simple way we estimate we're around 10 to 15 percent of our cost structure exposed to raw materials
23:10Um, and just to clarify a couple of things on that, we've been experiencing increases in costs in general, but also raw materials, for a number of quarters now
23:22That piece picked up in Q1, so last quarter, and what we're seeing for Q2 is slightly higher than that as well
23:31And you know, as indices move, it doesn't impact us immediately or directly in some cases; we have contracts with suppliers
23:39Then, as those contracts expire, we have to renegotiate them, so there can be a lag in some cases
23:45Our contracts do directly reflect movement in commodity prices around material costs, but the timing in which Tesla pays for those costs has a lag associated with it as well, based on the contract
23:59To Elon’s point, what we’re trying to do here, because it is quite an unprecedented situation of raw material movement and all of these various lags and uncertainties around renegotiating contracts, is to anticipate where things will go and make sure that the pricing we have in place at the time those raw material cost increases hit us aligns with that
24:19This way, the company can..
24:21Remain financially healthy in various scenarios as we look out over the next four quarters
24:36Okay, thank you very much
24:52The next question is: Why does Tesla continue to fight dealership laws on a state-by-state basis versus taking it federally? Why isn't Tesla using 800-volt architecture in its vehicles? What are the advantages or disadvantages? From the standpoint of course, we would love to have federal legislation that allows direct sales in all states, but we have not seen willingness on the part of Congress to enact such laws that would override the variety of state laws
25:07So, unfortunately, we have to fight it on a state-by-state basis
25:13And I drew, do you want to answer that 800-volt question? Yeah, sure, on the..
25:14800-volt thing, um, yeah, so it's really a case-by-case thing for the smaller platform vehicles like Model 3, and why there's, you know, some wins and losses with 800 volts
25:25Not everything is better, and so we look at that platform and, you know, we're not like ignoring the reality that you can go to a higher voltage, but there's nothing really encouraging us to do so on that platform
25:38Uh, it's really about mass and power, and as you look at bigger vehicles, there are some advantages on those bigger vehicles
25:48So now we just quantify that
25:50Basically, our estimate is that going from 400 to 800 volts might save $100, yep
25:55It's not really moving the needle, and you're changing many things, yes, but the..
26:02Charging infrastructure, all the way through the entire vehicle system, yes, to get maybe a hundred dollars, yes
26:06Okay, exactly
26:10So, I mean, in the US, you've got 110 volts household power, or voltage, and then in most places, like, so 220, but really, it doesn't make that much of a difference; appliances work pretty much the same in Europe as they do in the US
26:29So, the advantages are small, and the cost is high
26:33Like, in the long term, years from now, does it make sense to probably move to an 800-volt architecture? I said probably, but it really needs very large vehicle volume to pay for all the costs of changing from 400 to 800 volts, and then you guys want to..
26:57I was just going to say that 100 volts is also kind of like a spreadsheet exercise, right? Sorry, 100 is roughly like a spreadsheet exercise, like you know that you have to get through the full program to the end to see that maybe it's been whittled away at to 50 or less
27:10Yeah
27:12On bigger vehicles, where you're talking about higher power on the charging side or higher power from the battery to the power electronics, or you need more torque, so the current requirements go up
27:24There's a little bit more semiconductor and actual conductor savings in going to the higher voltage
27:33And so, we do consider that for Semi and Cybertruck, but for the three-platform where we've got..
27:40Everything's running, and the benefit is questionably small
27:43Yeah, it's basically zero for RoboTaxi
27:45Yeah, for RoboTaxi
27:47Yeah, it doesn't make sense
27:49Yeah, um, so no induction, no, no, sorry, no, that's this, that size
27:55Uh, sounds good
28:02Okay, let's go to the next question
28:04The next question is, how are the current 4680s performing versus expectations set during Battery Day in terms of expected range increase and dollars per kilowatt-hour? Yeah, yeah
28:17Um, we're working in all the areas we shared on Battery Day, and we have sort of consistent progress across all of those areas towards achieving the five-year cost trajectory goals for the cost within our control
28:29But we do not control all the commodity costs, so you know that that's
28:36That's an exception I need to call out
28:39Um, similar to the Model 3, it will take us several years to get rates and yields to the point where everything we've discussed is achieved
28:46Our priority was on simplicity and scale during our initial 4680 battery cell ramp-up
28:50As we attain our manufacturing goals, we will layer in new material technologies
28:54We are developing higher-range structural pack revisions
28:58I think, maybe in a nutshell, sure
29:04I think probably as far as to say that 4680 and structural packs will be competitive with the best alternatives later this year, and what we think will exceed the best alternatives next year
29:21Yeah, I mean, we have some good existing proof points, right, like we've..
29:25We built the facility here in Texas, and we know how much we spent on capital equipment for the facility
29:29It's more than five times less than prior technology installations, so we're saving huge on CapEx, utilities, and personnel
29:40We know what those loads are and how many people are needed to run what is basically a highly automated factory, and we have massive reductions in both
29:50So, the cost model is well understood; it's really about rate and yield, which will come in time, as Elon said, over the course of this year and next
29:58 Thank you
30:06And the next question is: How does Tesla plan to secure the raw materials required to scale to an extreme size? Yeah, so this is something we think about quite a lot
30:13Because what extreme size means, but, um, you know, so it's only like looking at, say, the 5, 10, 20 million dollar, 25, 10, 20 million vehicle levels
30:23You really have to analyze the sort of macroeconomic, uh, you know, like just what is the tonnage of, uh, lithium that you need, of nickel, of iron phosphate, of graphite, separators, electrolytes
30:45They look like, you know, it really needs to think of, like, just macro tonnage
30:51And when you think about this for the world as a whole, uh, because, you know, just like we want to figure out what a limiting factor is for accelerating the advent of a sustainable energy future, and whatever those limiting factors are, Tesla will take action on those limiting factors
31:04So right now, we think, um..
31:17Mining and refining lithium is, uh, it appears to be a limiting factor, and it certainly is responsible for quite a bit of cost growth in the cells
31:30That's, I think, the same single biggest cost growth item right now on a percentage basis
31:36Although, just for those who don't totally know this, the actual content of lithium in a lithium-ion cell is maybe around two or three percent of the cell
31:46So, 5 kg is a car
31:51Yeah, it's, in fact, it’s not
31:55It's called a lithium-ion cell, but by far the most expensive and heaviest item in the cell is the cathode
32:00Um, so that's the nickel with the 100% phosphate
32:02Um, so we're looking carefully at all of the raw materials and trying to figure out how we can..
32:16Accelerate the total amount of materials needed to transition the world to sustainability, and I think we've got that
32:24We don't have enough time on this call to really go through all those details, but we're all thinking about these things, and we think we'll have some exciting announcements in the months to come
32:35Yeah, one thing I want to call out is that we're also, you know, committed to recycling at all of our cell factories
32:41We're recycling 50 tons a week right now in Reno, ramping up to 150, with all of that reclaimed material going directly back into our cathode supply chain
32:51So, we're looking at the beginning and end-of-life needs here
32:56Yeah, and that's true — since Reno built the data factory, and we started doing that with..
33:01Batteries, but as we build newer factories or vehicles, for example Giga Texas here, where we are today, basically all of its non-yielded or scrap aluminum from the stamping shop directly into the casting shop
33:11We regrind any plastic that comes out, and so we're really concerned about raw materials, not just mining them and consuming them, but when we get them in the door, using all 100% of them
33:21Yeah, Lawrence, that's a great point
33:24So, we're restoring and installing melt furnaces for aluminum, for example
33:29We're going to put the Model Y that we build here in Giga Texas, which has both a front and a rear body casting
33:43We're just casting almost two-thirds of the body, and then that's cast
33:49It's high quality
33:56Pressure die-cast aluminum, and so we can take both scrap from the casting machine and the gating that comes out, and just really toss that back into the melting aluminum pot
34:03As Lars was saying, we can also take any stampings and other aluminum scrap and throw that in the melting pot as well
34:13In fact, we've also figured out that we can use wheels from practically any car
34:21Yes, so we're going to be recycling the aluminum wheels from legacy gasoline cars and incorporating them into the aluminum cast body of the Model Y
34:36We will also be moving toward the production of cast front and rear body parts for all models
34:45Vehicles over time, but well, actually maybe not SX, but it's very wide
34:54Thank you
34:57At what rate do you expect Berlin and Austin to ramp relative to Shanghai? Are we able to leverage learnings from Shanghai, or are the processes substantially different in the new factories? Well, I think, hopefully, we should be able to program production faster than Shanghai because we have learned a lot, and we've now been through it
35:18We have basically veteran teams that have seen the three-way ramp wireamp, especially in multiple locations, and we're obviously sharing what we've learned
35:34So it, you know, we don't want to get complacent or entitled, but this should be a faster ramp because we have learned more, and we've done a..
35:44A lot to simplify the production process of Model Y
35:48That should lead us to a faster ramp-up in Texas and Berlin
35:51We also have good structural and casting technologies, reducing about 30% of the robots
35:57We expect to almost double the capacity for body production, for example, producing bodies with fewer robots but doubling our capacity in many areas
36:09The body line for the structural pack is designed accordingly, including the structural pack itself and the bright front and rear castings
36:22The Body Shop is significantly smaller—over 60% reduction in size compared to the standard way of making a car
36:34We have integrated the structural battery pack into the floor, which is now part of the battery itself
36:41The seats on the battery, and then we put that in their car, so it's actually like 2, 10, and 15 less stations in Georgia because of the General Assembly experiment
36:50Yeah, as well, so really, really, I think about this in the way that we think about cars
36:54If you're waiting for the best Tesla, you're going to be waiting forever
36:57If you're waiting for investment entering, you're also going to be waiting forever because every new factory is better than the last one because we take all that learning
37:04So, we throw in a little tips
37:05Yeah, thank you
37:09Um, the next question is: at Cyber Rodeo, Elon mentioned that a futuristic driverless robotaxi vehicle is on the roadmap
37:14When can we expect more details on the product offering to be unveiled? Is this? Is this something that people can own, or will this be only offered by Tesla as a service? Uh, so I think we want to hold off on jumping the gun with an exciting product announcement too much
37:31I think we'll aim to, if we do a product event for RoboTaxi next year and get into more detail, but we are aiming for volume production in 2024
37:48All right
37:52And maybe the last question from investors is, what is the current run rate of 4680 cell production at Fremont and at Giga Texas? What do you expect the run rates of 4680 to be in three months at Giga Texas or Berlin at the end of the year? Well, Berlin is using the 2170 non-structural pack, so they're not constrained by 4680
38:18They will transition to 4680 hopefully later this year
38:23This year, but current building production doesn't require that we also have, uh, just as risk mitigation, uh, 2170 non-structural pack, uh, capability here at Giga Texas as well
38:37But, uh, yeah, if things go according to plan, we will be in volume production with 4680 batteries, uh, you know, and sometimes perhaps towards the end of the third quarter and certainly in the fourth quarter
38:51Is that accurate? Yeah
38:55And the other thing I would add is, like, with the China COVID shutdown and the semiconductor bottlenecks we experienced through Q1, we have sizable cell inventory at the moment and access to cells to support the 2022 volume targets you described
39:07So, that gives us the ability to be pretty deliberate in scaling the 4680
39:12Ramp, where we can maximize learning step by step, take engineering downtime to upgrade key pieces of equipment and modify the structural pack design to improve reliability, all while achieving what you just said
39:23So, yes, with 4680 output, it is not a risk to achieving one and a half million vehicles produced this year, but it would become a risk next year if we do not resolve employee production issues
39:38Good, you know, by early 2023, but we're highly confident of doing so
39:43Thank you very much
39:46Let's go to analyst questions now
39:48The first question comes from Dan Levy from CSFB
39:51Please go ahead and unmute yourself
39:53Hi, good evening, thank you for taking questions
40:02The questions first, maybe you can just talk through or..
40:05Address what some of the drivers of cost improvement were in the quarter
40:09Was it just further improvements within Shanghai and Fremont, or anything around ongoing Kaizen that you've talked about in the past? Maybe you could just talk through what you benefited from in the first quarter
40:26Sure, I mean, at a high level, cars produced in Shanghai do carry a lower cost structure than cars produced in Fremont, and so as our mix of cars shifts towards Shanghai, the average cost is positively impacted by that
40:42We're also seeing some progress in manufacturing efficiencies in Fremont, particularly on the Model Y side, as volume increases and improves
40:53There has been a huge story for the company
40:56Q4, uh, we had massive amounts of expedites
40:58Q1 was still quite large, but we did make progress bringing that down somewhat
41:05Our manufacturing team and our associates there, uh, because we're achieving record output at Fremont
41:19Yeah, the Fremont team is doing a tremendous job, really
41:25Absolutely
41:31Yeah
41:37Um, uh, it's hard to underestimate, like you should, the expedite situation with the crazy logistics that occurred with COVID
41:43I mean, yeah, and, and, you know, to Elon’s point, the Fremont team and also the Shanghai team have been extremely dynamic with the unpredictable nature of our part arrivals
41:51Our supply chain team, in particular the production planning portion of the supply chain, we often get very little notice
42:00When those part shortages come in, and it's kind of a scramble a couple of days before that part is supposed to arrive to figure out how to get it here, and so the amount of Herculean effort that goes into producing a quarter like Q1 and even the quarters before that is absolutely immense
42:16Um, and so I mean, it's like the saying in the military, you know, it's like, uh, amateurs talk about tactics, uh, professionals talk about logistics when it comes to war
42:25Yeah
42:34Um, you know, so there were some inherent cost improvements, as I mentioned, but you know, there are also offsets that we've talked about previously on raw materials, commodities
42:43Outbound logistics continue to remain a challenge, despite a ton of efforts to increase capacity
42:48and bring those costs down below
42:51Sorry, guys
42:55Yeah
43:00Yes, thank you
43:04Um, second question: you know, one of the initial goals of the Model 3 back when was to have an EV that was affordable for a wide portion of the market, and you know, we know prices are much higher now, just given the supply constraints
43:09Uh, prices are higher for all of the automakers
43:11We know that there's inflation that you're battling through, and some of that needs to be passed through to the price of the vehicles
43:17Um, and you're going to be supply constrained for the foreseeable future, so it's sort of a moot point
43:22But given the long-term goal of making EVs more widely available to the masses over time, how do you look at the progression of prices over time? Absolutely
43:31We want to make EVs as affordable as possible
43:39It's been very difficult with, you know, I mean, I think inflation is at a 40- to 50-year high, and I think the official numbers actually understate the true magnitude of inflation
43:55So, um, and that inflation appears to be likely to continue for at least the remainder of this year
44:05When we're talking to suppliers, they are under severe cost pressure
44:12So, um, yeah, and in some cases, we're seeing suppliers request 20 to 30 percent cost increases for parts from last year to the end of this year
44:31It's because there's a lot of cost pressure there
44:33That's why we raised our prices
44:37We, and when things are censored with respect to inflation, but you know it's high then, and we've got orders that go out a year or more in some cases, so we have to anticipate those cost increases
44:54But I think especially with the Robo-taxi and Autonomy, I think we'll end up providing consumers with by far the lowest cost per mile of transportation that they've ever experienced
45:11I mean, with the Robo-taxi, it's maybe five to ten times lower in cost per mile, which is really quite substantial and therefore accessible to everyone
45:23Yeah, I mean, look at some of our projections: it would appear that a Robo-taxi ride will cost less than a bus ticket, possibly even subsidized by a subway ticket
45:43Let's go to the next question from Rod Lache from Wolf Research
45:54Hi, everybody
45:59Um, I’m trying to just parse out your comments about the inflation and constraint supply of battery feedstocks and the initiatives that you are working on internally to secure these materials
46:12It sounds like you're optimistic about Tesla's ability to solve this
46:19Do you see this as a constraint on EV adoption more broadly? Yeah, absolutely
46:29The thing that's helping us keep our costs down, at least in the short term, is that we have long-term contracts with suppliers
46:39But those long-term contracts will obviously run out, and then we will start to see potentially significant cost increases
46:48But, but, looking at the world as a whole and saying, uh, okay, what does it take for Earth to transition to sustainable energy faster? It's fundamentally, uh, the fundamental limiting factor is the output of the cell, basically, the cell output—what, how, um, at what rate can lithium-ion cells increase the gigawatt hours per year? That is the fundamental limiting factor
47:19So, in order for that to happen, it will move as fast as the slowest, least lucky element of the whole supply chain
47:29Currently, we see that as being a challenge with lithium, and it's not that, to be clear, there's a shortage of lithium ore in the world
47:42Lithium is present almost everywhere; it's a very common element
47:47However, you still need to, you know, dig up the ore, or I think basically this large mean or whatever the clay, with the lithium, and then you need to go through a whole series of refinement steps, and that's a lot of industrial equipment needed to refine lithium or to produce lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate for use in battery cells
48:14So, we think we're going to need to help the industry on this front
48:21But there's, I mean, history is moving fast, and I certainly, you know, encourage entrepreneurs out there who are looking for opportunities to get into the lithium business
48:36But lithium margins right now are practically software margins
48:42I mean, if the, I think of it as something..
48:48I think it is
48:50All right, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we're seeing cases where the spot lithium price is, uh, ten times higher than the cost of extraction
49:02So, we're not talking about 90% margins here
49:04Can some more people please get into the lithium business? It's like minting money
49:14Well, if you're in the business of Philadelphia, then yes, it's for you
49:16So, interesting
49:19I guess we’ll stay tuned to see what happens from that
49:28 My second question is, it’s impressive to see just a modest increase in the cost per vehicle, the cost of goods sold per vehicle, given what we’ve seen in terms of commodities actually, and from here, you have a lot of savings opportunities with 4680 cells and the battery cells
49:43Manufacturing changes, the anode chemistry, structural packs, Giga castings—are you suggesting that even those may not be sufficient to offset the inflation you're seeing and that you're going to need additional pricing as well, in addition to those specific initiatives you've called out? But we hope we don't need to increase prices further
50:09The current pricing is based on our anticipated probable growth in costs, and if that growth in costs does not materialize, we may actually reduce prices slightly
50:26So, should we currently expect to make significant price increases? But obviously, we don't control the macroeconomic factors
50:39Environment, if governments keep printing vast amounts of money, and if there's not significant increases in lithium extraction and refinement, as well as other raw materials, so that everyone is competing for a limited supply of raw materials, then obviously that will drive prices to high levels
51:02So, if you have a crystal ball that can tell us what the future will be like, we'd love to know
51:11But currently, the prices are based on what we expect for vehicles delivered six to twelve months from now
51:21This is our best guess
51:23However, I think, to zoom out a bit, as you said, our mission is to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy, so we are..
51:30Working with our existing suppliers and others to figure out how to grow all of these raw materials as quickly as possible to not slow down the transition
51:40Yeah, and you know whether that means we have to get directly involved in some cases or not comes down to the counterparty and their willingness to expand at the rate we think they should be able to expand
51:51And that's similar to what we've done with everything else, like we built a Gigafactory in Reno because it needed to be done
51:57Yeah, and so, like, we will do what needs to be done to not slow down the transition
52:01And affordability is a goal because, yeah, it's unaffordable
52:05It's going to the growth of what is inherently a good thing, so we can't have that as an outcome
52:10Thank you
52:15The next question comes from Pierre Peragu from New Street Research
52:20Can you hear me well? Yeah, great
52:24Um, I'd like to ask you some questions about free cash flow
52:32Um, do you, um, so, so first, maybe in the long run, you learn, if you look at your performance and your growth, your gross model, and your gross ambitions
52:44I did the math very quickly, and I see you guys sitting on four or maybe 500 billion dollars of cash at the end of the decade, and I was wondering if it's something you have given some thought to
53:00Yeah, that might be like, you know, if your inflation keeps going crazy, 500 billion dollars might be like, you know, 20 billion dollars today
53:07I don't know
53:14Um, so you know, we'll see what 500 billion dollars buys you in, you know, in a decade
53:20But it might be a lot less, um, so I don't know if we'll— that seems like a lot of cash
53:27Uh, we will try to do something useful with it
53:31I mean, exactly, so every downside problem, that's for sure
53:37The way we've been, I think we have to take this one step at a time
53:41And so, you know, we have investments that are happening right now to get Austin and Berlin up and running, and then as Elon mentioned, installing capacity for Robo-taxi production
53:54Um, and you know, there are some decisions that, as Elon alluded to, just you know, to share in the future about what the economic model looks like with the economic model for Robo-taxi
54:10And so, you know, the way Elon and I have discussed this is, let's just, yeah, everyone just mute if you're here
54:19Yeah, so..
54:28Our focus is, you know, to get to the point where Revo taxis are on the road, Optimus is in use, the economic model for that is dialed in, and then evaluate, you know, the size of cash flows at that point and make decisions then as to what's next
54:37Okay, Pierre, do you have a follow-up question? Yes, yes, and I think it, it..
54:49okay, all right, let's go to the next one
54:55The next question comes from Trip Chadray from Global Equity Research
54:58Thank you
55:02I have two questions
55:05First, regarding the Cybertruck, I was wondering, in terms of the number of parts, how would the Cybertruck compare with a traditional pickup truck? The second question I have is about Giga Nevada in Sparks—will it have any production? All vehicles in that factory or all future production will happen in Giga Austin
55:18Thank you
55:31I'm not sure if we've actually done a comparison of Cybertruck parts versus regular truck parts
55:44I mean, Lars, yeah, I mean, if you want to go down that route, it depends on what you kind of compare
55:50We still have cells in there, you know, like if we touch them, if we don't count that
55:55The simplicity of our structure is significant compared to a traditional, you know, pickup truck or any other vehicle
56:04As we've talked about, Giga castings save hundreds of parts
56:07I mean, then try our rear half of the car, which is one casting, and even with the Cybertruck, for example, we have an exoskeleton for the doors
56:17Design where the door is, ready to take, and it takes all the, you know, the side mode from impact, so we really have, like, we don't have the door reinforcements, we don't have to worry about crashing games
56:25So, like, to your point, I haven't counted them because I don't often look back at old technologies to decide how well I'm doing and check that once in a while, but, in general, architecture is always moving to reduce complexity, reduce parts, and reduce parts count
56:40I would say, ignoring the battery cells, we're probably, you know, 20 to 30 percent less
56:44Right
56:48Um, okay, thank you
56:52Let's go to the next question, or do we expect to expand? Yeah, we do expect to expand
56:55Google Nevada, there's a lot of room for expansion there, and again, would you… We expect to, uh, increase output from Nevada, but the biggest increase in output will be from Giga Texas
57:15Thank you very much
57:19The next question comes from Alex Potter from Piper Sandler
57:21Alex, can you hear us? Yes
57:25Hi, Martin
57:30Can you hear me? Yep
57:35Okay, great
57:41So, the first question I had was regarding the extent to which other plants outside of China are insulated from any further upstream supply bottlenecks that we may have in China
57:47Obviously, if this COVID lockdown situation gets out of hand, it's clear that it's going to continue impacting Shanghai, but is there a point at which it could also impact other facilities? Yeah, if we were to continue, but there are some parts that are sourced in China that apply worldwide, and..
58:07That would be, that would impact, uh, production elsewhere
58:09But, um, all indications are that, uh, you know, we, we are, we're, uh, Gigafactory Shanghai is back in production at fairly high levels already, and, and, uh, so are our suppliers
58:28So, we don't think this is going to be a big deal
58:33Okay, thanks
58:38Second question: um, obviously, the higher profitability you guys have been able to experience over the last couple of quarters, a lot of that is reflecting, sort of, quote unquote, real improvements
58:44Another part of it is because we're no longer paying you, Elon, as much as we were
58:49So, I'm wondering, you know, the extent to which you and the board are in the process of contemplating another one of these long-term compensation packages, which in the past… It seems to have worked out quite well, thanks
59:03There are no discussions currently underway for incremental compensation for me, thank you
59:11The next question comes from Colleen Langham from Wells Fargo
59:14Oh, great
59:18Do you guys hear me? Yeah, yeah, perfect
59:21Sorry to keep going on the raw material issue on the battery side, but obviously it seems pretty important
59:28How quickly can raw material supply be built, because my understanding is it takes many years to develop that infrastructure? So, are we just facing a potential lithium shortage or a nickel shortage? And is there even enough time to build that kind of mining capacity in place? And then, related to that, how quickly can you switch to LFP batteries, you know, for the...? Nickel issue, yeah
59:50I mean, I'll take the LFP question
59:52Like you know, it says so in our letter, but half of our products were LFP last quarter, which shows how quickly we were able to respond to, well, honestly, it wasn't because of a raw material shortage, but just because it seemed like the right thing to do
01:00:10We could change our cathode chemistry, and there's more to be done on the cathode side, and we are actively pursuing it to give us substitution flexibility in response to market conditions
01:00:21Between the other cathodes that are out there, which can be competitive in our vehicles, so, which there are many options
01:00:31So, I guess what I would say is specifically on the cathode side, like..
01:00:38Flexibility is the way we're going to achieve this, and not all of the materials that go into cathodes are actually, first of all, hard to secure—like through mining or refining—and secondly, in many cases, are already very plentiful at a large scale
01:00:53You know, if all of the batteries in the world use those cathodes, it's less than a one percent increase in total annual output
01:01:00So that's the cathode side
01:01:02You know, I think Elon already spent a lot of time talking about lithium
01:01:07It really depends on the resource—some resources, like just getting rocks out of the ground, expanding the amount of rocks that you're extracting, is maybe just a little bit of paperwork and effort
01:01:18Some additional, um, sort of plastic and trucking operations
01:01:21The refining is, is, maybe where there's, you know, it's a little bit more chunky to bring it online, but also the refining doesn't, it's not like an oil refinery; it's a much, much smaller operation to refine, uh, lithium out of spodumene or, uh, liquid, like a brine or a salt pond evaporation
01:01:42So, you know, you're talking about a time scale of one to two years, and it's not like we haven't been talking, uh, to all of the lithium, you know, many suppliers out there for many years
01:01:55They have a lot of projects already in the pipeline to come online this year and next
01:01:59Some of what's going on in the lithium market this year doesn't actually have truth to bear on the market
01:02:04Fundamentals of supply and demand, which is also a little frustrating, but uh, but yeah, if we look past this year or next year into 2030, when we need 15 to 20 terawatt-hours of this stuff to, you know, get on the growth trajectory and actually stay on it, we need everybody to do more in the lithium space than they currently are
01:02:28I don't know if that answers the question
01:02:32Yeah, fantastic, thank you very much
01:02:35So, let's go to the last question from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs
01:02:39Yes, uh, good afternoon, and thank you very much for taking a question
01:02:49I was hoping you could comment on your latest thoughts about potentially opening up the charging network in the US to non-Tesla owners
01:02:53I'm certainly really
01:02:56It's important to have a good experience for Tesla owners in terms of wait times or charge installations, but if Tesla is able to have enough capacity, it could be a really good way to bring other vehicle owners into the Tesla Network, perhaps helping Tesla sustain its Network benefits and maybe making more people likely to buy Tesla vehicles in the future
01:03:13Yes, as Elon has said and as we've publicly committed, we do plan to provide third-party vehicle access all over the world, not just in Europe where our original pilot was
01:03:32We are working on solutions in North America, which is a little bit more problematic due to our connector being different from others, but we are moving in that direction
01:03:44I don't know if you want that
01:03:49Yeah, yeah
01:03:53I think there's more to be said on that, but we're, um, yeah, we want to do the right thing with respect to the whole system
01:03:58We're going faster on adding chargers, absolutely
01:04:01It's a growth of the cars that we're producing and then anticipating what Drew is discussing
01:04:07Overall, charger capacity is really important, and so the pace of our investments in Supercharger has accelerated
01:04:15Absolutely
01:04:23For my second question, could you share any more details on Tesla Insurance, in particular, as you're rolling it out in more states? You know, are there any metrics you can share on what take rates have been like, and how do profitability margins on the insurance..
01:04:30Offering compared to the corporate average, thank you
01:04:32Um, so we just launched Tesla Insurance for real-time insurance in Virginia, Colorado, and Oregon earlier this week
01:04:41Maybe one thing that I'll share is that Texas is our longest-standing real-time insurance market, but based on the information we have, Tesla is the second-largest insurer of Teslas in the state of Texas, and possibly by the end of this quarter, maybe early next quarter, we will be the largest insurer of Teslas
01:05:04So, you know, the customer reception to this has been quite positive, and, um, uh, if I was reading social media on Monday after we launched in the three new states, a lot of folks were reporting their stories of saving quite substantial amounts
01:05:19Of money relative to their previous insurance, and so we're quite encouraged by that
01:05:25We're working as quickly as we can to get to 80 percent of customers having access to a Tesla Insurance product by the end of this year in the United States
01:05:35At which point, we'll pivot our attention to expansion outside of the US
01:05:39The other thing I'll say on insurance is with these three new states, the model is different because we are now the underwriter and we're also not holding the risk
01:05:48With those changes, we are a fully vertically integrated provider of insurance, from systems to financials
01:05:56With respect to the financials of the program, it's still very early, and so, as the program gains more scale, we're happy to..
01:06:03Share more information on that, and one side note is that we are seeing that having real-time feedback for driving habits is actually resulting in Tesla owners driving the cars in a safer way
01:06:22So, you know, because they can see that they get real-time feedback on whether this is affecting their insurance rate or not
01:06:33And when people see, they could consider seeing a real-time score and realize, oh, if I make the polling changes, it might improve my driving habits and reduce my insurance costs
01:06:48Then they have a very real-time feedback loop for safer driving and an incentive to do so
01:07:01So, what we're seeing is that it is causing people to drive their cars in a safer manner, which is..
01:07:08Also not good
01:07:12It's safer on average, what we see in the data, to Elon's point, and premiums are lower
01:07:18We see that in the take rate data
01:07:21We have extremely high retention for customers who experience the product
01:07:26I think I've talked about this in the past, but this has become a real passion program for us
01:07:31Yeah, you know, for these benefits, it's bigger than just the economics
01:07:34We're trying to do a good thing here for our customers, save people money, and make the roads a little bit safer
01:07:41I think it improves overall macroeconomic efficiency
01:07:44It's also a feedback loop for Tesla because we see, uh, if there is, you know, a crash, large or small, we sort of see exactly what that cost is, and now we're okay
01:08:00About how can we change the design of the car or the software in order to minimize the probability of that, you know, accidentally happening, because most accidents are minor, but how do we have those accidents occur less frequently and how do we make the repair associated with an accident super fast? Like, aspirationally, it'd be a same-day repair for a collision, which is just night and day compared to sometimes having to wait a month while insurance claims are settled and figured out
01:08:38Because Tesla is also doing collision repair, the feedback loop is instant
01:08:42Yeah, right
01:08:47So, I mean, we do claims management in-house, and so we receive the notification that..
01:08:51There’s an accident, we work to prepare the estimate, and, um, and we can, you know, with the support of our customers, use our collision centers to do the repair
01:09:00Yeah, and so it’s, you know, full end-to-end visibility and all of that
01:09:04To Elon’s point, we can then identify areas of cost inefficiency, feed those back to engineering teams or software teams, which actually improves the product, lowers the cost of insurance, and enhances the reliability of the product
01:09:12So it’s a full circle
01:09:20Yeah, like, basically, the customer experience is just vastly better because if there’s an accident, there’s no argument— we’re repaired immediately
01:09:29And this is, as compared to arguing with an insurance company and then a claims adjuster
01:09:37Then, a collision repair center, and this can be a nightmare, basically
01:09:42So, we want to try to turn a nightmare into a dream with Tesla Insurance
01:09:44Fantastic
01:09:47Thank you very much
01:09:50Unfortunately, that's all the time we have this quarter, so thank you very much for all your great questions, and we'll speak to you again in three months
01:09:57Thank you
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