Elon Musk: Tesla Aiming For 20 Million Vehicles/Year By 2030
Elon Musk tweeted out some big news this week about Tesla’s future plans. However, it wasn’t about immediate plans and it followed Tesla’s huge Battery Day event, so it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.
First of all, Musk tweeted that Tesla plans to reach production/sales of 20 million vehicles a year by 2030. He acknowledges that it’s an ambitious plan that “requires consistently excellent execution.” Nonetheless, that’s basically Tesla’s whole history. It is built on ambitious plans that many see as “impossible” but the company consistently got the job done.
That’s total market, not all Tesla. We do see Tesla reaching 20M vehicles/year probably before 2030, but that requires consistently excellent execution.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2020
Even so, 20 million is a big increase from today. The question this year is whether Tesla will reach its guidance of 500,000 vehicles. At a glance, 20 million is a long way away. However, the rise up to 500,000 by 2020 was probably even harder than the rise from 500,000 to 20 million.
Seven years for sure to 30M+ new fully electric vehicles per year, six years maybe. Five years is possible, but unlikely. An extra year makes a giant difference when it comes to exponentials.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2020
Tesla Dominance in 2020s
We have a deep analysis of this plan coming soon, but I’m going to quickly run through a couple of points.
First of all, while I do think Tesla is years ahead on key tech (batteries and software), it is pretty stunning to see that Musk is forecasting annual production and sales of 30+ million electric vehicles globally (from all companies) by 2027 and Tesla production and sales of 20 million by 2030. That’s not the same timeline, but it’s clear that Musk sees Tesla remaining the most dominant player in the global EV industry — by far — in the coming decade.
Stepping back a mile, 20+ million cars a year isn’t just a big number for the electric vehicle market — that’s a giant number for any automaker. When I examined the 10 largest automakers in the world back in 2018 and their electric vehicle plans, I found that #1 Toyota was selling 10.2 million a year, #2 Volkswagen Group was selling 10.1 million vehicles a year, and #3 Hyundai/Kia was moving 7.9 million vehicles a year.
So, 20+ million would be approximately as much as the two largest automakers in the world sold in 2017 … combined.
You may believe that target is realistic, but believe it or not, 20 million vehicles a year is a stunning production and sales target.
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