Tesla (TSLA, Financial) recently reported its third-quarter financial results, highlighting robust growth in its energy generation and storage business. The segment's revenue surged by 52% year-over-year, significantly outpacing Tesla’s automotive and services sectors, while achieving a record-high gross margin of 30.5%. The company anticipates doubling the deployment of energy storage products in 2024 compared to the previous year.
In Q3, Tesla's total revenue reached $25.2 billion, marking an 8% increase from the same quarter last year. Breakdown of revenue shows $2.376 billion from energy generation and storage (up 52%), $20.016 billion from automotive (up 2%), and $2.79 billion from services and other revenue (up 29%). Tesla's energy storage deployment hit 6.9 GWh, a 73% increase year-over-year.
Tesla set a new record in Q2 this year with a single-quarter energy storage deployment of 9.4 GWh, taking the cumulative deployment for the first three quarters of the year to 20.4 GWh. Looking ahead, the company expects more than a 100% increase in energy storage product deployment by 2024. Elon Musk, during Tesla's annual shareholder meeting in June, suggested that the annual growth rate for Tesla's energy storage could reach 200% to 300%. Musk also projected that Tesla's energy business might eventually surpass its automotive segment in size due to the large-scale adoption of renewable energy facilitated by extensive energy storage deployment.
Tesla reiterated in its financial report that its Shanghai Gigafactory is scheduled to begin shipping Megapack units in the first quarter of 2025. Tesla collaborates with CATL to procure lithium iron phosphate batteries for its Megapack products. CATL has noted a faster growth in the energy storage market this year compared to the electric vehicle battery market.
Dongwu Securities reported that since August, the demand for batteries and overseas energy storage has exceeded expectations, with CATL operating near full capacity, largely driven by overseas large-scale energy storage applications. Dongwu Securities forecasts that CATL's energy storage battery shipments could reach 105 GWh to 110 GWh in 2024, growing more than 55% year-over-year, and maintaining a growth rate of 50% in 2025.
The growing focus on energy storage from industry giants like Tesla and CATL is sending positive signals across the industry supply chain, prompting other companies to ramp up their investments in this field. Executives from a listed chemical company expressed optimism about the high growth potential and assured expansion of their energy storage business.
Furthermore, companies are looking to capitalize on this opportunity, with Haibosi Chuang passing its IPO on the STAR Market to raise 783 million CNY for energy storage system construction and R&D projects. Meanwhile, Sungrow Power Supply plans to issue GDRs in Germany to expand its energy storage capacity both domestically and internationally.
