ClaimsElon Musk

“we've got a 100 gigawatt-hour total Tesla cells produced in 2022.”

Elon Musk, CEO, on Tesla earnings call 27 January 2021 Tesla Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript (Motley Fool) archived copy

Guidance Their own work or organisation

Tesla targets 100 gigawatt-hours of Tesla-produced cells in 2022.

Resolved false The record shows it did not happen or was not so.

Guidance: A company's own figures for its results over a period, checked against what it then reported.

The rule for a forecast that gives a range or a bound: the reported figure has to meet it as stated. A figure outside a range counts as not met whether it came in above or below, so beating a forecast is scored like missing it. The reasoning says which it was.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

Quantity: the gigawatt-hours of battery cells Tesla itself produced in calendar 2022 (Tesla-made cells such as 4680, not cells bought from suppliers like Panasonic, LG or CATL). Treat it as a point target, so roughly 100 GWh counts. True: Tesla-produced cell output was at least about 95 GWh. Mostly true: about 90 to 95 GWh. Mostly false: about 50 to 90 GWh. False: below about 50 GWh, or no meaningful in-house volume. If only supplier-inclusive totals reached 100 GWh, that does not meet the claim.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Tesla 4680-Type Battery Cell Production Nears 1 Million/Week InsideEVs · 26 December 2022

    “Well, if we combined the number of more than 1,000 Model Y cars and 50+ weeks per year, the production rate might be at 3.5-4 GWh/year.”
  2. E2 Tesla 4680-Type Battery Cell Production Nears 1 Million/Week InsideEVs · 26 December 2022

    “According to the company's tweet, the team managed to produce roughly 868,000 4680-type cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells during the last 7 days.”
  3. E3 Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Q4 FY2022 Earnings Call Transcript - January 25, 2023 roic.ai (transcript of Tesla Q4 2022 earnings call) · 25 January 2023 Own record

    “Regarding batteries, production rate of 4680 cells reached 1,000 cars a week at the end of last year, and we're increasing capacity for 4680 cells by another 100 gigawatt-hours as announced at Giga Nevada yesterday.”
  4. E4 Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Q4 FY2022 Earnings Call Transcript - January 25, 2023 roic.ai (transcript of Tesla Q4 2022 earnings call) · 25 January 2023 Own record

    “As far as where we stand in Texas, one of four lines are in production, with the remaining three in stages of commissioning and install.”

Reasoning

E2, an independent InsideEVs report from late December 2022, says Tesla made about 868,000 4680 cells in one week. E1 puts that at roughly 3.5–4 GWh a year if annualized. This was near the peak rate at year end, so Tesla's own cell output for all of 2022 was far below the 50 GWh threshold, let alone 100 GWh. Tesla's Q4 2022 earnings call (E3, E4) is consistent with this: it says 4680 production reached a rate of 1,000 cars a week at the end of 2022, and that one of four Texas lines was in production.

Cite this claim

Elon Musk, “Tesla targets 100 gigawatt-hours of Tesla-produced cells in 2022.” (said 27 January 2021). Verdict: resolved false. Reliability API, claim c_e2981f50819d, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_e2981f50819d

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Elon Musk, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More guidance claims by Elon Musk

  1. Resolved false Guidance 27 January 2022
    “we do expect significant growth in 2022 over 2021, you know, comfortably above 50% growth in 2022.”

    Tesla expects growth in 2022 over 2021 comfortably above 50%.

  2. Resolved false Guidance 27 January 2022
    “it might grow by like 200% or 300% or something, you know, as opposed to sort of 50% or something.”

    If able to respond to demand, Tesla's energy business might grow by about 200% to 300% in 2022 rather than about 50%.

  3. Resolved true Guidance 27 January 2021
    “I think this year, we may track to a fair bit about 50%, but we don't want to commit to that”

    Tesla may track to growth of a fair bit above 50% in 2021, though it does not commit to it.

  4. Resolved true Guidance 26 January 2023
    “And the 1.8 million cars, if we get lucky, it could be more.”

    Tesla expects to produce 1.8 million cars in 2023, possibly more if it gets lucky.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.