SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla Inc results surged past Wall Street expectations on Wednesday, as higher prices helped insulate the electric vehicle maker from supply chain chaos and rising costs.
The results also should trigger $23 billion in new payouts to CEO Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man.
Tesla has been an outlier since the pandemic outbreak, posting record deliveries and earnings for several quarters when rivals wrestling with global supply chain snarls rolled out production halts.
Shares of Tesla rose 5% after the close of regular trading.
On an investor conference call, Musk said Tesla has a reasonable shot at achieving 60% vehicle delivery growth this year and remains confident of seeing 50% annual delivery growth for several years.
Tesla raised its prices in China, the United States and other countries, after Musk said in March the U.S. electric carmaker was facing significant inflationary pressure in raw materials and logistics amid the crisis in Ukraine.
“Our own factories have been running below capacity for several quarters as supply chain became the main limiting factor, which is likely to continue through the rest of 2022,” Tesla said in a statement.
The price increases are designed to cover higher costs for the next six to 12 months, which protects Tesla on orders for cars that it may not deliver for a year.
“Price increases are nicely exceeding cost inflation,” said Craig Irwin at Roth Capital.
“Chinese production issues seem well managed, and we…
