Tesla has announced another record quarter for vehicle deliveries, and this one ended a record-breaking year. In the last quarter of 2021, Tesla delivered 308,000 vehicles, putting its total deliveries for 2021 just under a million — 936,000. And its two new gigafactories in Berlin and Austin aren’t even online yet.
Tesla noted that it was the customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and supporters who helped it achieve a great year in 2021. The company also shared a breakdown of the total vehicles delivered and produced by model in Q4 2021 and all of 2021.
Q4 2021:
Total produced and delivered 2021:
Tesla has had an extremely good year, and although the recent headlines are a mix of FUD and news of Tesla’s $1 trillion market cap, it’s good to look at some of the articles shedding light on just how much Tesla has grown and achieved. The achievements from 2020–2021 are the foundation of Tesla’s success in 2022 and 2023, in my opinion.
Around this time last year, Tesla had just announced that it had sold 500,000 vehicles in 2020. This number is small compared to this year’s numbers, but it was a struggle for Tesla to reach 500,000 vehicles sold in 2020. Tesla endured a lot of hate, doubt, and uncalled for criticism on its way to that target.
Last year, I wrote this article, which covered the details of Tesla achieving this goal despite all of the critics and many in the media yelling that it was impossible and would never happen. Also recall that, in 2020, Tesla’s newly built Giga Shanghai had to close due to the pandemic. So did the rest of Tesla’s factories along with the entire world thanks to the worldwide shutdown that followed the pandemic.
Through its production rise, Tesla also made history by becoming the world’s most valuable automaker, against all odds. Also worth remembering, Tesla was the only American company granted the opportunity to wholly own its factory in China. During the pandemic in China, Tesla and other manufacturers worked closely with the government to ensure the safety of employees and Tesla brought that knowledge and experience to the US. (Yet, I haven’t seen anyone else mentioning this.)
In August 2021, it was noted that the Tesla Model 3 had had over 1 million deliveries globally, making it the first EV to pass one million cumulative sales. It is also the top selling electric car in the world this year, by a considerable margin.
Tesla is also the brand that sold the most electric vehicles in 2021. The December numbers aren’t in for everyone yet, but that’s clear already.
In 2020, critics doubted Tesla would be able to sell 500,000 EVs in 2020 and we saw that goal achieved. Last year, Tesla sold almost double that number. With Giga Berlin and Giga Texas coming online this year, I think it’s safe to assume that Tesla will sell well over 1 million cars in 2022. We will continue to see Tesla progress throughout the next year — as well as more FUD from critics and politicians who would be better off recognizing that Tesla is an ally to their policies.
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