Tesla has just announced its fourth quarter and full year 2016 financial results, including the Solarcity plant, CFO change, and new developments in Model 3.
Financial report shows that in the fourth quarter ended December 31, Tesla's total revenue was $ 2.285 billion, up from $ 1.14 billion in the same period last year and less than $ 2.298 billion in the previous quarter. Tesla's fourth quarter net loss was $121 million, or a diluted loss per share of $0.78; net profit for the previous quarter was $21.9 million, or $0.15 per diluted share; net loss for the same period last year was $320 million, Diluted losses of USD 2.44.
Market analysts had previously expected that, in accordance with US GAAP, Tesla’s fourth-quarter revenue was $2.18 billion, and the diluted loss per share was $0.43; in fact, Tesla’s fourth-quarter revenue was 2.285 billion. The US dollar, diluted loss per share, was $0.69. In other words, Tesla's fourth-quarter revenue exceeded market expectations, but net profit fell short of expectations.
Tesla's total operating expenses for the fourth quarter were $702 million, compared to $551 million in the previous quarter and $479 million in the same period last year. Among them, Tesla's research and development expenditure in the fourth quarter was 246 million US dollars; sales, general and administrative expenses were 456 million US dollars. Tesla's gross profit for the fourth quarter was $435 million, less than the $637 million in the previous quarter, better than the $219 million in the same period last year.
Tesla produced 24,882 vehicles in the fourth quarter, down 1% from the previous quarter and 77% from the same period last year. Tesla delivered 22,252 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter, a 10% decrease from the previous quarter and a 27% increase from the same period last year. The company expects to deliver 47,000 to 50,000 Model S and Model X electric vehicles in the first half of 2017, with deliveries increasing 61% to 71% from the same period last year.
Tesla Energy, the energy storage division of Tesla, deployed 98 MWh of energy storage business during the quarter, while SolarCity, which was merged into Tesla Energy, deployed 201 MW of solar power in the quarter.
Gigafactory 1 2 3 4 5...
Although the Gigafactory 1 in Nevada's super battery factory has not yet been fully built, in the investor letter, Tesla officially has decided on the location and construction of the Gigafactory 2. This is the first time Tesla has defined the factory project in writing. In fact, Tesla will also complete the siting of Gigafactory 3, Gigafactory 4 and “possibly also” Gigafactory 5 later this year. But Tesla made it clear that Gigafactory 2 is located in Tesla's solar power plant in New York (the original Solarcity solar plant.)
We expect Gigafactory 3 and Gigafactory 4 to land in Europe and Asia, respectively, and China will become the home of the Tesla plant in Asia.
This plan is described by radicals. We know that "Giga" is a prefix of 1 billion in English, so Gigafactory originally refers to a single factory with a capacity of 1 billion cells per year. However, considering that Gigafactory 1 has already begun to build the Model 3 production line, the super battery factory distributed in Eurasia is more likely to have the function of producing cars.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn't think it was radical. He said in an interview that to build enough batteries to achieve "the world's energy to sustainable change", it is necessary to build 100 Gigafactory... So, Now only 5% is planned:)
  The new CFO will officially become Tesla in April , and the current CFO Jason Wheeler will leave, and the successor is Tesla's former CFO Deepak Ahuja. Musk also said that Deepak's return is "long-term" rather than temporary.
The current CFO Wheeler served as Google's vice president, and his greatest achievement was to help Tesla achieve its first profit in 13 quarters last quarter. In addition, while assisting Tesla to complete Solarcity's M&A work and the Model 3 supply chain preparations launched in July last year, it also improved Tesla's cash position during the quarter, and also saw his excellent work ability.
However, the late Tesla veteran Deepak Ahuja should not be underestimated. He joined Tesla in 2008 and had experienced and dealt with Tesla's financial crisis many times before leaving in 2015. Before joining Tesla. He has been a senior executive at Ford for a long time and has been promoted to the CFO of Ford South Africa. The forthcoming Wheeler will be involved in public policy and seek work related to environmental policy. Wheeler said, “I look forward to continuing to support 'sustainable energy' work from the public policy arena.” Given Wheeler’s positive assessment of Tesla and the vision of Tesla’s sustainable energy development before the departure, we speculate on Tesla’s future. It is still possible to benefit from Wheeler's new work.
Musk said: "Jason Wheeler is an important member of the Tesla leadership team and he played an important role in further improving the company's financial situation. I would like to thank Jason and wish him a smooth development in the public policy arena. Looking ahead, we are very Happy Deepak joins Tesla again to ensure a seamless transition from Tesla."
Model 3
Tesla's emphasis on Model 3 is evident in capital investment. Tesla announced that it is expected to invest US$2.0-2.5 billion in the first half of 2017 in order to successfully mass produce Model 3. In contrast, Tesla's capital expenditure in the last quarter was only $520 million. In addition, Tesla reiterated the Model 3's quantitative production plan, Model 3 will begin production in July this year, and rapidly grew to "mass production" in September.
In a letter to shareholders, Tesla said that the development, supply chain and manufacturing of Model 3 is advancing to support the first order delivery in the second half of the year, in early February, as part of vehicle design and manufacturing, Tesla The Model 3 prototype was built for testing, and the initial crash test results were positive, and all parts procurement plans will support production in July. At the Tesla Fremont plant and Gigafactory 1, the installation of the Model 3 manufacturing facility is underway; as early as January, we have started producing the battery cells used in the Model 3.
Tesla said that after production began in July, the Model 3 line will increase capacity to 5,000 units per week at a node in the fourth quarter of 2017 and continue to increase to 10,000 units per week in 2018. According to this statement, although Musk had previously “delivered 100,000 to 200,000 Model 3s in 2017”, it is difficult to produce 50,000 Model 3s. Previously, Wall Street’s forecasts were generally between 0 and 2,000 vehicles.
In addition, Musk said that the Part 3 release, which focuses on the Model 3 interior, will be postponed until after the start of production in July. When it comes to the specific details of Model 3, Musk mentioned: "In some ways, it has become much better. "We suspect that the trunk design that was "too small" to be spoiled last year may be changed. In addition, combined with past Tesla dynamics, the Model 3 may be equipped with a dashboard display or directly equipped with a HUD head-up display. Projecting information on the front windshield, Musk also revealed that it is considered to be equipped with a solar roof for the Model 3, and of course everything will be announced until the release.