A record figure.
Electric vehicle maker Tesla, boosted by a record number of second-quarter deliveries, earned more than $ 1 billion over three months for the first time.
However, the situation on the semiconductor side continues to be "quite serious," said Elon Musk, the boss of the manufacturer, during a conference call with analysts.
"It's complicated to say how long it will last because we can't do anything about it ourselves" he added.
The group has so far been able to get around much of the problem by using new chip designs and rewriting software accordingly.
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But "for the rest of the year, our growth will depend on the smallest piece of our supply chain," Musk warned.
The automaker, which announced in January that it wanted to increase its deliveries by 50% on average per year for several years, has not officially changed its forecasts, however.
Delay announced on the next models
As for its factories under construction, Tesla believes it is still "on track to manufacture (its) first Model Y vehicles in Berlin and Austin in 2021".
On the other hand, "to better focus on these factories, and due to the limited availability of battery cells and the challenges of the global supply chain", Tesla has decided to postpone the start of production of its truck until 2022. Semi.
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Elon Musk also indicated during the conference call that his Cybertruck electric pickup was going to be late.
Rising numbers
The company had already announced that it had delivered 201,250 vehicles in the second quarter, an unprecedented level despite this shortage of electronic chips and the supply problems that have been disrupting the automotive sector since the start of the year.
The group's net profit increased tenfold over the period to reach $ 1.14 billion.
According to the specialist firm Cox Automotive, Tesla represented 64% of sales of electric vehicles in the United States in the second quarter, against 71% in the previous quarter and 83% over the same period in 2020. On the Bitcoin component, Tesla had created the surprise at the beginning of the year by announcing having bought for 1.5 billion dollars, the value of which soared until mid-April, before falling sharply, with the repeated assaults of Elon Musk.
Tesla in support of sustainable energy?
Elon Musk has also returned to his intention, announced recently on Twitter, to open Tesla's network of charging stations to other brands of electric vehicles.
In the United States, it will be enough, he assured Monday, to download a Tesla application and to buy an adapter.
We created our own connector, as there was no standard back then & Tesla was only maker of long range electric cars.
It's one fairly slim connector for both low & high power charging.
That said, we're making our Supercharger network open to other EVs later this year.
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2021
“Our goal is to support the advent of sustainable energy.
It's not about creating an enclosed space and using it to attack our competition, said Elon Musk.
Increasing the use of Tesla's network will also allow the group to make economies of scale and be more profitable ”.