Tesla said on Wednesday that profits more than six-fold increased to $5.5 billion in 2021, the highest in its 19-year history, as sales continue to rise, especially in Europe and China.
But the automaker has warned that supply chain problems caused by the pandemic will continue to limit production next year.
“Our own factories have been operating at less than full capacity for several quarters as the main constraint has been the supply chain, which is likely to continue until 2022,” the company said.
The automaker said its revenue rose to $53.8 billion in 2021 from $31.5 billion a year earlier. Deliveries increased by 87 percent to 936,000 vehicles.
The company’s bottom line includes nearly $1.5 billion it earned from selling regulatory loans to other automakers, down slightly from the previous year.
Tesla grew last year despite a shortage of computer chips that limited production from other manufacturers for much of 2021. The company was able to mitigate the shortage by switching to more affordable chip types and writing new manuals or firmware. to be embedded in a chip.
In addition to its existing factories in Fremont, California, and Shanghai, Tesla needs the output of the new factories it is building in Texas and Germany to sustain rapid growth. He reiterated his previous forecast that sales would grow by an average of about 50 percent per year over the next few years.
“We are aiming to ramp up production as quickly as possible,” the company said on Wednesday.
Tesla dominates the electric vehicle market in the United States, but is likely to finally face some serious competition this year. Ford Motor, General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai have outlined ambitious plans to introduce new electric vehicles in the US. Two fledgling EV makers, Rivian and Lucid Motors, have also just begun deliveries of vehicles designed to compete with Tesla.