As Jazz pointed out earlier, Elon Musk is still getting a lot of attention (much of it negative) over his attempt to purchase Twitter. Meanwhile, his car company continues to be a tremendous success. Tesla announce Q1 results on a conference call today and pretty substantially beat all of the expectations put forward by analysts.

Tesla just reported first-quarter earnings for 2022 and beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. Here are the key numbers.

• Earnings per share: $3.22 vs $2.26 expected
• Revenue: $18.76 billion vs $17.80 billion expected

Automotive revenue reached $16.86 billion, up 87% from the same period last year. Automotive gross margins jumped to a record 32.9% with Tesla reporting gross profit of $5.54 billion in its main segment. Regulatory credits accounted for $679 million of automotive revenue for the quarter.

Tesla has $17.5 billion in cash on hand as of the end of the quarter and nearly zero debt. You can listen to the entire call here. As impressive as those numbers appear, they’re even more impressive when you compare Tesla’s growth to the slump in sales that other major manufacturers are seeing this year.

Toyota Motor Auto Sales

Q1 2022 sales estimate: 510,348 vehicles, down 15% vs. Q1 2021…

General Motors

Q1 2022 sales estimate: 485,330, down 24% vs. Q1 2021…

Ford Motor

Q1 2022 sales estimate: 431,123, down 17% vs. Q1 2021.

And so on. Honda was down. Stellantis was down. VW was down. But while every major manufacturer had a sales slump in the double-digits, Tesla’s revenue was up nearly 90 percent and their demand is still so high that cars ordered now may not be delivered until next year.

In addition, Tesla has two new factories (Berlin and Texas) just ramping up and its Shanghai factory was shut down for several weeks this month. Despite this, Musk anticipated 50-60% growth this year compared to last year.

[Musk] said the company should be able to produce 1.5 million vehicles this year, a bit better than a 50% increase from its 2021 output.

He said he believes the company should be able to continue its 50% annual growth rate “for the foreseeable future, for basically several of the next years.”

“Basically, the future is very exciting. I’ve never been more optimistic or excited about Tesla’s future than I am right now,” he said.

If Tesla can maintain that level of growth for 3-4 years, it will likely be a top 5 automaker worldwide in terms of revenue and net profits. Musk recently said his next goal for the company was reaching “extreme size” so he’s potentially just getting started with more giga factories to come. It’s pretty remarkable when you consider the company was nearly bankrupt just a few years ago.