Tesla sets new global sales record
EV brand just misses 500,000-unit target for 2020, but 36 per cent increase is no mean featTesla delivered a record 499,550 vehicles to customers in 2020, finishing the year with a strong fourth-quarter result that left it just shy of the targeted half a million sales for the full 12 months.
This is a particularly impressive performance in light of COVID-19 and the severe impact the pandemic has had on global automotive sales.
Tesla delivered 180,570 vehicles in the final three months of 2020, the vast majority of those (161,650) made up of the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, the latter having just entered production in Shanghai, China.
The company reported that combined sales of the Model 3 premium mid-size sedan and the related Model Y SUV (not yet on the road in Australia) were 442,511 units for the full year, accounting for 88.6 per cent of all Tesla sales.
The Tesla Model S flagship sedan and Model X SUV made up the remaining 57,039 sales combined last year, including 18,920 in the fourth quarter.
In a statement to investors, Tesla described its performance – which included 509,737 vehicles produced in 2020 – as “another great year”, with net income and cash flow results to be announced later.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also tweeted: “So proud of the Tesla team for achieving this major milestone! At the start of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a 10% chance of surviving at all.”
The company also advised that “our delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct”.
As a result, final numbers could vary by up to 0.5 per cent or more.
Tesla’s 2020 full-year result of 499,550 global sales is up 35.9 per cent (or 132,050 units) on the 367,500 new vehicles it delivered in 2019.
The 180K-plus it delivered in the final quarter is a big jump from the previous record quarterly total of 139,300 units it achieved in the third quarter of last year – and a sign of things to come, as it continues to ramp up production for more affordable mass-market models, and enters new segments including the lucrative pick-up category with the all-new Tesla Cybertruck.
Pre-pandemic, Tesla was expecting to “comfortably exceed” sales of more than 500,000 in 2020, and although these expectations were tempered as COVID-19 forced production delays during the year, the US car-maker said in October that it was still targeting half a million.
Tesla does not report sales for the Australian market.
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