Austin-made Teslas to be delivered soon as production ramps up

Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings report revealed that Model Y production started late last year at Giga Texas, meeting the company’s timeline goal.

Deliveries will start, Tesla says, after final certification. Following that, Tesla will start on its Cybertruck, which CEO Elon Musk has been test-driving around Giga Texas this week.

“We aim to increase our production as quickly as we can, not only through ramping production at new factories in Austin and Berlin, but also by maximizing output from our established factories in Fremont and Shanghai,” the company wrote in its quarterly report.

The latest quarter report comes as Giga Texas, the factory in southeast Travis County also serving as Tesla’s headquarters, is poised to be a critical piece in Tesla’s growth.

Tesla also flexed a 65% year-over-year revenue hike in the quarter. The stronger than expected results also show the company reporting a net income of 2.32 billion.

And, automotive revenue totaled $15.97 million, a 71% year-over-year rise.

But the year ahead could be an uphill battle for the automaker. The report mentions that Tesla factories have been running below capacity for several quarters, and warned supply chain issues could carry through 2022.

Musk said the fundamental focus for this year is scaling outward and described constraints in the past year as “chip drama central.” A new Department of Commerce report notes a few types of chips are particularly affected by the shortage, including legacy logic chips used in automobiles, medical devices and other products.

The chip limitations have shifted the company’s ambitions, with Musk saying Tesla won’t be introducing new vehicle models this year. For now, focus will turn to work on engineering and tooling to create future vehicles.

Still, deliveries are seeing increased performance. Tesla reported a delivery record of 308,600 electric vehicles that surpassed analyst predictions.

Tesla is also reporting a 27.4% gross margin, up less than a percent since the previous quarter.

Tesla mentioned plans to grow manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible, setting a goal of 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries.

Other updates from Tesla's quarter report include the unveiling of a fleet of new Tesla Semi electric trucks and an expansion of its experimental driver assistance systems testing program known as FSD Beta.