With the year now over, we have been waiting on Tesla to release their Q4 2020 delivery and production numbers to see if they were able to hit their ambitious 500,000 delivery goal. While the company was able to have a record quarter and delivered over 180,000 cars, they just barely missed the mark of hitting half a million cars for the year.
Today Elon Musk took to Twitter to state how proud he was of his team for achieving the major milestone.
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. https://t.co/xCqTL5TGlE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2021
Here is the count for Q4 2020:
| Production | Deliveries | |
|---|---|---|
| Model S/X | 16,097 | 18,920 |
| Model 3/Y | 163,660 | 161,650 |
| Total | 179,757 | 180,570 |
And here is the total for the entire year of 2020:
| Production | Deliveries | |
|---|---|---|
| Model S/X | 54,805 | 57,039 |
| Model 3/Y | 454.932 | 442,511 |
| Total | 509,737 | 499,550 |
Along with the numbers, Tesla wrote:
In 2020, we produced and delivered half a million vehicles, in line with our most recent guidance. In addition, Model Y production in Shanghai has begun, with deliveries expected to begin shortly.
While it is a little disingenuous to say that they produced AND delivered half a million cars, given that they were only 450 deliveries away from reaching the mark, I can’t blame Tesla for considering themselves winners in this situation. Surprisingly Tesla did not make mention of its extended factory shutdown earlier in the year where production in Freemont was halted for over a month, providing a more than good enough excuse for why the automaker was less than 500 cars short.
Still despite continuing to show growth year over year and smashing their previous record quarter by over 40,000 cars the fact that they missed their guidance might overshadow their accomplishments. It is important to note that as always, these numbers can be off by 0.5% or even more, meaning that when Tesla does theirs earnings call, the final number could take them over 500,000, but I doubt that such a situation would happen.
With 2020 now out of the way we can look forward to hopefully an uninterrupted production cycle as well as the addition of Shanghai Model Y production. What do you guys think the guidance for 2021 will be? Let us know down in the comments below.
1 comment
The numbers game is for PR and the stock market “price”. The reality is Tesla is headed for serious trouble with its failure to address chronic quality control issues. These issues are getting worse with reports not only from actual owners in media pieces but also on the Tesla owner forums. Then there is word from inside the factory that management is not enforcing quality control standards. Who wants to return their defective vehicle to the overfilled service center where telephone calls are not returned and communication issues continue. Seven day no-hassle return policy dropped by management. Refuse delivery of your defective Tesla, then you can’t reorder the same model for 12 months. Competition is arriving and the future is going to be not pretty.