Tesla's operating margin hit a record figure of 14.7 percent in the fourth quarter last year, which it said was the highest among volume carmakers across the globe, said the United States electric carmaker on Thursday.

In the conventional auto industry, single-digit margins are considered normal, according to industry statistics.

In the fourth quarter Tesla generated an operating income of $17.7 billion. "(This is) demonstrating that EVs can be more profitable than combustion engine vehicles," said the company in its financial statement.

Tesla sold 936,000 vehicles around the world in 2021, up 87 percent year-on-year, with 308,600 units delivered in the fourth quarter.

The carmaker produced over 1.22 million vehicles in 2021, and it said one of its priorities this year would be ramping up production further.

"We believe competitiveness in the EV market will be determined by the ability to add capacity across the supply chain and ramp production," it said.

"We aim to increase our production as quickly as we can, not only through ramping production at new factories in Austin and Berlin, but also by maximizing output from our established factories in Fremont and Shanghai," said Tesla.

The Berlin plant is in the stage of equipment test and is expected to produce vehicles soon for European markets.

The popular Model 3 vehicles sold in Europe are now produced at the Shanghai plant. But Tesla said the Shanghai plant will remain its "main export hub", a role the facility has played since the second half last year.

Last year, the plant produced over 480,000 vehicles and shipped over 160,000 vehicles of them from China into more than 10 countries, the majority of which were Model 3 sedans.

The Shanghai plant, which started production in late 2019, is Tesla's first car manufacturing facility outside the United States and China's first and only passenger car manufacturing facility wholly owned by an overseas carmaker.