Tesla delivered nearly 1M cars last year — but to join the OG auto leagues, it needs more factories

Technoking delivers… Tesla stock jumped more than 13% yesterday after the EV-maker announced it broke quarterly and annual sales records. It delivered an expectation-beating 936K cars last year — nearly double its 2020 deliveries. Elon can thank rising demand for Tesla’s more affordable Model 3 sedans and sensible but stylish Model Y hatchbacks.

• Chip shortages cut into production for most carmakers in 2021, but Tesla dodged some supply damage by removing radars and other parts from certain models.
• Tesla’s production is tiny compared to that of legacy carmakers like Toyota and Volkswagen, which each produced about 10M cars last year, but larger than that of rivals like Nio and Rivian, which delivered fewer than 100K EVs combined.
• Still, Tesla is worth more than the next 10 most-valuable automakers combined.

Giga growth… Tesla is expected to deliver nearly 1.5M vehicles this year, including the highly anticipated Cybertruck. But to hit Elon’s goal of selling 20M Teslas annually over the next nine years, Tesla needs to majorly expand its production footprint beyond its existing Giga-factories in California, Nevada, and China. Cue: This year Tesla plans to crank out EVs at new Giga plants in Austin and Germany.

• EV-eryone’s doing it: Tesla is expected to lose market share as EV-makers like VW, Ford, GM, and Lucid invest $20B+ in US plants in the coming years. Chinese EV rivals Nio and XPeng plan to open factories in 2022.