@avoigt my 2020 data for TSLA has 36.37 GWh made up of 34.40 GWh mobile and 1.97 GWh stationary. That represents 30.4% of global BEV+PHEV cell consumption by GWh. (the HEV consumption is trivial, about 3% so no longer material). That is up from 26.3 GWh in mobility for TSLA in 2019 which was then 31.6% market share by GWh. I have posted details of methodologies etc here in the past, and my numbers compare well with some industry data sources. Let me know if you need more info.
As investors, this is exactly the kind of data we should be obsessing over (more so than quarterly car delivery numbers and a bunch of other lesser things). It's all about the batteries (the cost to produce and the production capacity, including supply chains). Also important, the gross margins on all Tesla products - more so the trends than the absolute numbers. Because this informs how much pricing leeway Tesla has on various products. I mention this because there is the tendency to get sidetracked by car industry stuff. As investors it's important to stay focused on core issues that have the potential to sidetrack the business. In the old auto business, a business that was demand limited, it was all about features, styling, advertising, power and cost. Now it's about the batteries, volume and cost to produce. The rest will fall into place.
For years Tesla investors have been told they need to be concerned about "the coming onslaught of new EV's to the market". At some point this will become a factor and that point is still likely a long ways in the future. But when EV competition starts to become a significant factor, it will probably exhibit itself, not as a lack of demand, but as a pressure on the amount of gross margin a Tesla product can command. My expectation is that Tesla will continue to excel at driving production costs down so this won't be a factor. But that's why we should pay attention to it, so we are well appraised of Tesla's exact position in the market. Contrary to common wisdom, delivery numbers don't tell us that. If Tesla continues to excel at driving costs down and efficiency up, better than the competition, they will own the automotive market. Sure, there will be other players, that's fine, Tesla doesn't want more than, say, around 50% of the market. And 30% would be awesome! So would 20%. The point is, it looks like all Tesla needs to do to ensure dominance is to continue on the path they have forged. Which means it all comes down to management keeping the corporate culture intact as they grow.
Looking at delivery numbers is backward looking compared to looking at gross margin trends on those delivery numbers. For the purposes of long-term investing, the primary importance of delivery numbers should be to better interpret gross margins, ie, if production is hampered by one time events, it should impact gross margins and that needs to backed out to understand the larger, longer-term trends of gross margins that are happening behind the scene. There is likely a "golden period" coming within the next 3 to 6 years in which gross margins peak. This will likely be somewhere on the steepest portion of the EV adoption S-curve, I'm guessing closer to the bottom/middle than the top/middle. Any ideas on this?
In summation, try to keep a clear view of trends that actually matter in the long run and avoid going down the rabbit hole of analyzing or worrying about a multitude of details that don't require analyzing or worrying about. It's the big trends that matter, not the individual details.
electrek.co
