🏭 Tesla’s Giga game plan

Technoking delivers… Tesla stock jumped more than 13% yesterday after the EV-maker announced it broke quarterly and annual sales records. It delivered an expectation-beating 936K cars last year — nearly double its 2020 deliveries. Elon can thank rising demand for Tesla’s more affordable Model 3 sedans and sensible but stylish Model Y hatchbacks.

• Chip shortages cut into production for most carmakers in 2021, but Tesla dodged some supply damage by removing radars and other parts from certain models.
• Tesla’s production is tiny compared to that of legacy carmakers like Toyota and Volkswagen, which each produced about 10M cars last year, but larger than that of rivals like Nio and Rivian, which delivered fewer than 100K EVs combined.
• Still, Tesla is worth more than the next 10 most-valuable automakers combined.

Giga growth… Tesla is expected to deliver nearly 1.5M vehicles this year, including the highly anticipated Cybertruck. But to hit Elon’s goal of selling 20M Teslas annually over the next nine years, Tesla needs to majorly expand its production footprint beyond its existing Giga-factories in California, Nevada, and China. Cue: This year Tesla plans to crank out EVs at new Giga plants in Austin and Germany.

• EV-eryone’s doing it: Tesla is expected to lose market share as EV-makers like VW, Ford, GM, and Lucid invest $20B+ in US plants in the coming years. Chinese EV rivals Nio and XPeng plan to open factories in 2022.

Guacamole Greens go public... Sweetgreen became the first publicly traded lettuce stock in mid-November. For some the salad chain is a staple in cities like LA, NYC, and Austin, where Super Green Goddess salad is a lifestyle. SG was launched in 2007 by three college students in DC — now it has 140 locations in 13 states and plans to double that in the next five years. But SG lost $87M from January to September 2021, and the stock is down 36% from its IPO day high. Now...

• Sweetgreen is testing a subscription called Sweetpass to aid your New Year's resolutions with "30 days of green routines."
• For $10/month you get a daily $3 credit. The pilot expires on February 15 and is exclusive to orders made through Sweetgreen's app or website.

Click for Shroomami bowl... Sweetgreen really wants you to order online, and has been tech-ifying stores for that purpose (it even bought a salad-making robot company). It also offers promo prices and special menu items solely for digital customers. Here's why:

• Sweet greens are made of this: Digital orders make up more than two-thirds of Sweetgreen's sales.
• Digital users make 46% more visits than other customers — and spend 21% more per order.
• Optimizing operations and boosting stores’ sales volume through pickup and delivery could help SG notch up profits.

• Boost: The FDA authorized the first Covid booster shot for teens ages 12 to 15, extending emergency-use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s third jab.
• Guilty: Jurors found Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty on 4 of 11 charges in her criminal trial. She faces up to 20 years in prison for fraud related to her disgraced blood-testing startup.
• Delays: AT&T and Verizon refused the FAA’s request to delay the launch of their 5G wireless services. The FAA is worried that 5G signals could interfere with air traffic, and that could result in-flight restrictions and more cancellations.
• 15: 21 US states raised their minimum wages to kick off the new year, with California becoming the first to have a $15 minimum thanks to a $1/hour increase.
• Fruit: Apple reportedly sold 90M pairs of AirPods during the holiday quarter, including 27M pairs of its newest Pods. It could launch an AR headset this year.
• Lift: Planet Fitness said gym visits and membership growth is sticking despite Omicron concerns — adding that people are actually spending more time at its locations.

Earnings expected from: MillerKnoll

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Tesla, GM, Ford, AT&T, Apple, Google, and Pfizer

ID: 1974621