40% sales increase last year. Smaller margin on larger sales volume ... sounds all right to me, but I have no idea what that does to share price ...
Also more factories means that more cars are being made closer to customer. I'd be curious what the cost of shipping a car from China to UK is (including the month+ delay in turning it into cash) compared to Germany-to-UK.
Shipping prices are mental. Was £1k to ship a 40ft container to UK from China, then peaked at £10k during covid, and back down to £1k area again I think.
But a 40ft container isn't a car and Tesla lease the boats outright, so I would estimate about £1k to ship to here for example but thats a plain guess
In terms of profit/financials, if you take a walk through the numbers (estimated/ballpark)
Say for example Tesla can get a MY SR into UK at a cost to them of £40k all in. Sell it for £52k, thats a 30% profit margin
If you are now selling that car at £45k, thats a 12.5% profit margin, which is clearly still healthy
However, in terms of overall profit even if you double sales off the back of a price cut like that, you still make less profit, due to lower margin
Eg, previously you were getting £12k profit for that car, now its £5k, you now need to sell double the volume just to get ~20% less profit
Of course, that £40k all in number cost to Tesla I pulled out of thin air. I simply took the £52k price at 30% margin to get to £40k, as thats the profit margin that Tesla has been generating on average, across the globe across all models. Nobody knows the margin breakdown by model type/region but at leasts its an approximate indicator to work off.
I think its certain, for the year 2023 at least, that even if Tesla were double their sales YOY, they will make less profit than 2022. So with double sales being unlikely, profits will be significantly down YOY (caveat, we haven't even seen profit for 2022 yet, I'm assuming at this point it will be broadly in line with previous years)