Most people don't stick to their New Year's resolutions. Most people aren't Tesla, Inc., though. The electric vehicle maker delivered a record number of cars in the final quarter of 2020, but fell just short of its 500,000-unit goal for the year.
"In 2020, we produced and delivered half a million cars," Tesla tweeted over the weekend, thanking "all those who made this possible"—including customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and supporters. "So proud of the Tesla team for achieving this major milestone," CEO Elon Musk added. "At the start of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a 10 percent chance of surviving at all."
A global pandemic failed to slow Tesla down, which in May defied statewide orders just to keep its Fremont, Calif., factory open during lockdown. The firm, in fact, shipped a whopping 180,570 vehicles in the last three months of 2020—beating its third-quarter record of 139,300, Automotive News reported. Its annual total also grew by 36 percent—from 367,500 deliveries in 2019 to 499,550 last year. Another 450 sales, and the company would have hit its 500,000-vehicle target.
These numbers, as Tesla pointed out, should be taken with a grain of salt. According to a Saturday press release, the automaker's 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 the paperwork is correct." Final figures could vary by up to 0.5 percent or more.
It was a busy year for Tesla, which in April laid off hundreds of car and battery contractors due to coronavirus restrictions, days before showing off a prototype ventilator manufactured from car parts. And as COVID-19 continued ravishing the world, Tesla continued pushing updates, hawking absurdities, earning tax breaks, and looking to the future.