Tesla has posted record-breaking results after announcing a multi-billion dollar expansion of its Nevada gigafactory to mass produce batteries. It has also confirmed plans for its long-awaited electric semi-truck.

The electric car maker revealed an 85% rise in profit to £11.4billion for 2022 on a 51% surge in revenue to £65.7bn. 

This followed a fourth quarter profit of £3.3billion, which was 43% higher than 2021 and beating market expectations.

Elon Musk’s vehicle maker delivered a record 405,278 electric cars in the final three months of the year.

The company instigated a series of steep price cuts in the US, Europe and China to protect itself against growing competition from rivals.

It is injecting more than £2.9bn to construct two new factories in Nevada, one to build the truck and another its 4680 battery. 

Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover has posted its first profit for two years after solid sales of its latest Range Rover and an improvement in the supply of components.

It said it had sold 5,000 of the Range Rover SV luxury 4×4 since its launch in October.

With an average selling price of £180,000, the model has netted £900m for the business and helped Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) record its first profit since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sales for the 12 weeks to 31 December came in at £6bn, an increase of 28% on the previous year. A profit of £216m in the third quarter compared to a £67m loss for the same period last year.

It now has around 215,000 customer orders on its books, an increase of more than 200,000 over the last three months.

The company said the supply of computer chips, vital for production of its advanced vehicles, improved after bottlenecks.

Car production slumps

Car production in Britain fell a further 10% last year to its lowest since 1956, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

Factories manufactured 775,000 vehicles in 2022, down from the 859,000 in 2021 and means output is down 40% on pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and 55% from the most recent high of 1.72 million in 2016.

“It is not good news,” said Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT. “And we thought 2021 was bad.”

Nissan said its latest hybrid Qashqai helped output at its plant in northeast England rise 16% in the year to 238,000 but this is less than half the 507,000 its Sunderland factory produced in 2016.

Production of the Toyota Corolla was down another 19% at its Derbyshire plant, which is producing 44% fewer cars than seven years ago.

However, luxury car makers are enjoying a boom. Production at Bentley in Crewe went through 15,000 vehicles for the first time, while Rolls-Royce, a BMW subsidiary, made 6,000 vehicles for the first time.