TESLA’S ANNUS MIRABILIS

During a year in which most automakers experienced a steep decline in production and sales – which they attributed to semiconductor shortages – 2021 was a breakthrough year for Tesla. The world’s leading electric car producer became the first automaker to reach a market capitalisation of more than $1 trillion. Plus, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Tesla achieved record deliveries of over 308,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021. which catapulted the EV maker to record deliveries of over 936,000 vehicles for 2021, representing an 87% year-on-year growth while achieving the highest quarterly operating margin among all volume OEMs. Tesla generated $5.5 billion net profit and $5.0 billion of free cash flow in 2021 – after spending $6.5 billion to build out new factories and on other capital expenditures.

In August 2021, the Tesla Model 3 became the first EV model to achieve cumulative sales of one million units. Not surprisingly, the Tesla Model 3 remained the best-selling

EV globally in 2021. Tesla also retained its supremacy as the best-selling global EV brand ahead of BYD, and as the best-selling global EV automotive group ahead of the Volkswagen Group.

Extrapolating from Tesla’s fourth-quarter delivery numbers, the company started the new year with an impressive annualised production rate of more than 1.2 million vehicles per year, even before starting production at its two new Gigafactories in Berlin and Austin. Tesla’s guidance provides for average annual production growth of 50% “over the next several years”, which would see Tesla producing approximately 1.5 million cars in 2022, and more than two million in 2023.

Tesla’s global car sales have now surpassed those of Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Subaru, Isuzu, and Volvo, among others. With two new Tesla gigafactories set to start production in the first quarter of 2022, the world’s leading EV maker now looks set to reign in more of the leading OEMs.