Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending December 31, 2023

January 24, 2024 5:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Martin Viecha

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Tesla's Fourth Quarter 2023 Q&A Webcast. My name is Martin Viecha, VP of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by Elon Musk, Vaibhav Taneja, and a number of other executives. Our Q4 results were announced at about 3.00 pm 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. During the question-and-answer portion of today's call, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please use the raise hand button to join the question queue.

But before we jump into Q&A, Elon has some opening remarks. Elon?

Elon Musk

Thank you. So the Tesla team did an incredible job in 2023. We achieved record production and deliveries of over 1.8 million vehicles in line with our official guidance. And in Q4, we were producing vehicles at an annualized run rate of almost 2 million cars a year. This is really a phenomenal achievement.

Looking at just the Fremont factory alone, we made 560,000 cars. This is a record. In fact, it's the highest output of automotive plants in North America. And people are often surprised that the highest output factory, car factory in North America is in the San Francisco Bay area. It's a little counterintuitive, perhaps. And it's really had an incredibly positive impact on that entire area.

What would have been a rundown strip mall is the highest productivity car plant in the Americas. Think about that. It was derelict when we got it, and now it's the most productive plant in this entire part of the world. And it's enriched the community in so many different ways. It's really a gem. So I'm super proud of the people that work there.

Model Y became the best-selling vehicle globally, as predicted. The best-selling vehicle of any kind, not just electric vehicles with over 1.2 million units delivered. The energy storage business delivered nearly 15 gigawatt hours of batteries in 2023, compared to 6.5 gigawatt hours the year before. So tremendous year-over-year growth, triple-digits. And yeah, I think we'll continue to see very strong growth in storage, as predicted. I said for many years that the storage business would grow much faster than the car business, and it is doing that.