Tesla said Wednesday that profit leapt more than sixfold to $5.5 billion in 2021, the highest total in its 19-year history, as sales continued to surge, especially in Europe and China.
But the automaker warned that supply chain troubles stemming from the pandemic would continue to be a constraint on production through the coming year.
“Our own factories have been running below capacity for several quarters as supply chain became the main limiting factor, which is likely to continue through 2022,” the company said.
The automaker reported that its revenue rose to $53.8 billion in 2021, from $31.5 billion a year earlier. Deliveries increased 87 percent, to 936,000 cars.
The company’s bottom-line figure included nearly $1.5 billion that it earned from selling regulatory credits to other automakers, a slight decline from the previous year.
Tesla grew last year despite a shortage of computer chips that limited other manufacturers’ production throughout most of 2021. It was able to mitigate the impact of the shortage by switching to types of chips that were more readily available and writing new instructions, or firmware, to be embedded into the chip.
In addition to its established factories in Fremont, Calif., and Shanghai, Tesla needs output from new plants it is building in Texas and Germany to maintain its rapid growth. It repeated a previous forecast that it expected sales to grow about 50 percent per year on average for the next few years.
“We aim to increase our production as quickly as we can,” the company said Wednesday.
Tesla dominates the market for electric vehicles in the United States, but it is likely to finally face some serious competition this year. Ford Motor, General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai have all outlined ambitious plans to introduce new electric cars in the U.S. Two fledgling electric vehicle producers, Rivian and Lucid Motors, also have just started shipping vehicles designed to compete with Tesla.
