Tesla Megapack deployment reached an all-time high in the first quarter of the year, along with the company’s energy business reaching higher profit margins than ever before.
During Tesla’s Q1 2024 earnings call held last Tuesday, CEO Elon Musk noted that Megapack deployments reached an all-time high, while the company reached a record profit margin of 24.6 percent on its energy business. By comparison, automotive margins in Q1 landed at 18.5 percent.
In addition, the company says it expects this trend to continue, as it predicts energy storage deployments overall to increase at least 75 percent from last year. Deployments also reached record highs in Q1, with Tesla deploying 4.1 GWh total energy storage deployments, as driven by Megapack deliveries.
“The Megapack, in particular, reached an all-time high in Q1, leading to record profitability for the energy business, and that looks likely to continue to increase in the quarters and years ahead,” Musk said during the call. “It will increase—we actually know that it will—significantly faster than the car business, as we expected.”
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The recent statements come as Tesla continues to ramp Megapack production at its first “Megafactory” in Lathrop, California, and as it’s just beginning construction on a second Megafactory in Shanghai, China. Once they reach volume production, both plants are expected to be able to produce 10,000 Megapacks per year.
“Lathrop is ramping as planned. We have our second GA line allowing us to increase our exit rate from 20 GWh per year at the start of this year to 40 GWh per year by the end of the year,” added Mike Snyder, Tesla’s Senior Megapack Director, during the Q1 2024 call.
“There’s really nothing limiting the ramp. Given the longer sales cycles for these large projects, we typically have order visibility 12 to 24 months prior to ship date, so we’re able to plan the build plan several quarters in advance.”
As Tesla stated during its Q4 2023 earnings call, its energy business is expected to outpace its automotive business this year. The company deployed 15 GWh of batteries in 2023, increasing from just 6.5 GWh in 2022, and Musk has also said that Tesla is expecting triple-digit growth in this area.
Musk also noted last year that the energy business was becoming its highest margin business, with energy and service now contributing over half a billion to the company’s quarterly profit.
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