Experts' expectations exceeded: Tesla delivers almost half a million cars

Saturday, January 02, 2021

Experts' expectations exceeded
Tesla delivers nearly half a million cars

Experts did not trust Tesla, but the electric car company achieved the goal it had set itself and delivered more cars than ever before. Tesla boss Musk is proud of the half a million and reveals that he initially had doubts whether his company would survive at all.

The US electric car maker Tesla delivered more cars than ever in the last quarter of 2020. With sales of 180,570 cars, the previous record of almost 140,000 from the third quarter was once again significantly exceeded. This emerges from a recent announcement from the company. For the year as a whole, Tesla was able to increase sales by 36 percent to 499,550 cars – and thus almost meet the target of half a million vehicles delivered.

Wall Street analysts had only expected 481,261 cars. Tesla boss Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that reaching "this milestone" made him proud of the Tesla team. "At the beginning of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a ten percent chance of surviving at all."

2020 was an extraordinary year for Tesla and his boss, with the 49-year-old becoming one of the richest men in the world right now thanks to a surge in shares. At the beginning of the year, production started in the plant in China – the so-called Gigafactory 3, which was completed in just a few months. Around half a million cars are to be built there once a year.

In Grünheide in Brandenburg, the company is currently building a factory that will start producing in July – less than two years after Musks announced that it would build a plant in Germany. So far there is no final building permit for the Tesla factory. From summer 2021 onwards, up to 500,000 cars will also roll off the production lines in the plant.

Market value rises by 700 percent

Although Tesla produces significantly fewer cars than the German manufacturers, the stock exchange is very rewarding for its success. Tesla's stock market value rose by more than 700 percent in 2020 to just under 670 billion dollars or around 550 billion euros. For comparison: BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen come to 47 billion euros, 62 billion euros and 82 billion euros, respectively.

Tesla's market capitalization is therefore greater than that of the major car companies Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and Honda combined. Analysts warn that Tesla is currently only making money thanks to the sale of emission rights. The five companies mentioned, on the other hand, worked hard to develop their own electric vehicles.