Tesla "turns to" LiFePo4 Battery Q2 net profit increases 10 times

On July 26, Tesla released its 2021Q2 financial report, with total revenue of US$11.958 billion, an increase of 98% year-on-year; GAAP net profit of US$1.142 billion, an increase of nearly 10 times year-on-year, a record high. This is also the eighth consecutive quarter that Tesla has achieved profitability.

Q2 Tesla's total production of electric vehicles was 206,421, and the delivery volume was 201250, a year-on-year increase of 121%.

In terms of vehicle types, Model 3 and Model Y delivered a total of 199,000 vehicles, an increase of 148% year-on-year. The proportion of Model 3&Y has further expanded to 99.1%. The actual delivery of Model S&X in the second quarter was only 1895, mainly because the Model S started to be delivered in mid-June after the facelift.

In terms of power generation and energy storage business, Q2 Tesla's revenue was US$801 million, a year-on-year increase of 116%. With the support of multiple MW-level energy storage projects, Tesla's Q2 energy storage added 1,274MW, an increase of 186.3% month-on-month and a year-on-year increase of 204%.

Musk believes that Tesla may reach annual sales of 1 million Powerwall units next year, but it still depends on the supply of batteries and chips. Musk also recently confirmed that the current backlog of Powerwall orders has reached 80,000 units, with a total value of more than US$500 million.

Taking into account the need to reduce the consumption of nickel and cobalt, Musk said that in the future all of Tesla's energy storage systems may use lifepo4 battery.

It is worth noting that its Q2 power generation and energy storage business cost is 781 million US dollars, and the profit margin is only 2.5%. This shows that further reduction in costs is also the reason why Tesla's energy storage products are considering switching to lithium iron phosphate batteries.

In terms of battery self-production, Tesla strives to achieve the goal of 50% increase in battery self-production in advance. However, Musk said that Tesla's batteries will not be 100% self-produced, because the demand for batteries is very large and will cooperate with suppliers, and the battery supplier's goal is to double the output by 2022.

Tesla also introduced the latest progress of the 4680 battery: the performance and service life of the 4680 battery have been verified at the Kato factory in California, and the production verification is nearing completion, but 10% of the process is a bottleneck that limits output. By the end of next year, 4680 battery production capacity is likely to reach 100GWh.

It is understood that Tesla will also change the battery composition, similar to the use of 2/3 iron phosphate batteries and 1/3 nickel batteries.

Since last year, CATL has entered the domestic Tesla Model 3 supply chain with the square lithium iron phosphate battery. Due to the sharp drop in battery costs, the price of Model 3 has been reduced accordingly, and Tesla has been able to further open the Chinese market. The Model Y recently launched by Tesla also uses lithium iron phosphate batteries, pushing the price of the vehicle to 276,000 yuan.

Musk said last year that more nickel will be mined, but nickel demand and supply will face a shortage. The industry judges that in the long run, the Tesla battery material system will change from a ternary system to lithium iron phosphate, and the proportion of lithium iron phosphate will increase.