Tesla
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Jan 25, 2023, 5:30 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Martin Viecha
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Tesla's fourth quarter 2022 Q&A webcast. My name is Martin Viecha, VP of investor relations, and I'm joined today by Elon Musk, Zachary Kirkhorn and a number of other executives. Our Q4 results were announced at about 3:00 p.m. Central Time in the update deck we published at the same link as this webcast.
During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements. These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC. [Operator instructions] But before we jump into Q&A, Elon has some opening remarks.
Elon?
Elon Musk -- Chief Executive Officer and Product Architect
Thank you, Martin. So '22 -- just going through the '22 recap. It was a fantastic year for Tesla. It was our best year ever on every level.
Team did an amazing job. It's an honor, of course, to work with such an incredibly talented group of people. So in 2022, we delivered over 1.3 million cars and achieved a 17% operating margin, the highest among any volume carmaker, I think maybe among any carmaker. While doing so, we generated $12.5 billion in net income and $7.5 billion in free cash flow.
Importantly, the Tesla team achieved these records while -- despite the fact that 2022 was an incredibly challenging year due to forced shutdowns, very high interest rates and many delivery challenges. So it's worth noting that all these records were in the face of massive difficulties. Credit to the team for achieving that. The most common question we've been getting from investors is about demand.
Thus far -- so I want to put that concern to rest. Thus far in January, we've seen the strongest orders year-to-date than ever in our history. We currently are seeing orders at almost twice the rate of production. So I mean, that -- it's hard to say whether that will continue twice the rate of production, but the orders are high.
And we've actually raised the Model Y price a little bit in response to that. So we think demand will be good despite probably a contraction in the automotive market as a whole. So basically, price really matters. I think there's just a vast number of people that want to buy a Tesla car but can't afford it.