Tesla Inc. on Monday posted its largest-ever quarterly profit — $1.14 billion — as it delivered a record number of vehicles in the second quarter despite a global semiconductor shortage that has hampered much of the auto industry.
Revenue during the quarter nearly doubled to $11.9 billion, with automotive gross margins hitting 28 percent, the electric vehicle maker said. The company also was aided by $354 million in sales of regulatory credits to competitors, 17 percent less than a year earlier.
Tesla delivered 201,304 vehicles in the quarter, up 121 percent from the same period a year earlier. All but 1,895 were Model 3 sedans or Model Y crossovers.
The company’s second-quarter net income was roughly equal to its total profit in the previous 12 months and more than 10 times the $104 million it earned in the second quarter of 2020.
Tesla said the chip shortage effects “continued to be present” in the quarter. It praised employees for working “extremely hard to keep production running as close to full capacity as possible. With global vehicle demand at record levels, component supply will have a strong influence on the rate of our delivery growth for the rest of this year.”
The company said it was again postponing the launch of its Semi truck, this time to 2022, citing limited availability of battery cells and “global supply chain challenges,” and so it can better focus on its assembly plants under construction in Austin, Texas, and Berlin, Germany.
