WASHINGTON (AFP) – Tesla delivered a record number of cars in 2020, the company said, just narrowly missing its half a million target for the year.
The pioneering high-end electric vehicle maker delivered 180,570 cars to customers and produced 179,757 in the fourth quarter of the year, it said in a statement.
Tesla’s previous record was 139,300 vehicles delivered in the third quarter of 2020.
For the full year, Tesla delivered 499,550 cars to customers, just shy of its target of half a million, and produced 509,737 units.
The firm said its delivery count was conservative and that final numbers could vary by up to half a percentage point or more.
Tesla Chief and co-founder Elon Musk hailed the figures as a “major milestone” for the firm.
“At the start of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a 10 per cent chance of surviving at all,” the mercurial tech entrepreneur tweeted.
Tesla’s entry-level Model 3 and its crossover Model Y accounted for nearly 86 per cent of deliveries, with the balance split between the luxury Model S sedan and the Model X SUV.
