Tesla reports record production results

Tesla has reported record production results as the company continues to cut costs of its electric vehicles, increasing mineral demand. Electric vehicle (EV) giant Tesla has announced record deliveries on Sunday for 2023’s first quarter. The company produced 440,808 vehicles and delivered 422,875 vehicles. Tesla’s number of vehicles delivered was up 4% from the previous quarter and 36% from the same period a year ago. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly cut Tesla pricessince the beginning of this year in order to drive demand. Prices were lowered around 4% for the Model S and 9% for the more expensive Model X. Despite missing sale targets, Musk claimed that Tesla deliveries could hit 2 million vehicles this year, up 52% from last year. Gene Munster from equity investment firm Deepwater Asset Management told reporters: “Tesla deliveries were in line with the consensus numbers, but it was a disappointment relative to some of the whispered numbers”. He went on to say: “They showed an acceleration, but they didn’t accelerate to the level that Musk had suggested it would”. Tesla will post full results from this quarter on 19 April. Production increased at the company’s factories in Berlin, Germany and Texas, US. Tesla claimed in a tweet hat the Texas factory built 4000 Model Y cars last week, while  the Berlin plant produced 4000 a week earlier this month. Tesla sources a high proportion of minerals required for production directly from mines according to its 2021 impact report. This includes over 95% of the lithium hydroxide, 50% of the cobalt, and more than 30% of the nickel used in its high-energy density cells (NCA and NCM).. The EV and battery storage sector is the largest consumer of lithium worldwide. From 2040, the industry is set to take over from stainless steel as the largest end user of nickel by 2040, according to the same report. Musk also suggested last year that Tesla has plans to enter the mining space to source its own lithium directly. Musk criticised rising lithium costs in a tweet last year stating that: “There is no shortage of the element itself, as lithium is almost everywhere on Earth, but pace of extraction/refinement is slow”.