Tesla Couldn't Achieve The Annual Goal But Sales Up By 36%

On Saturday, Tesla said that it delivered 499,500 vehicles for the year 2020, which includes 180,570 SUVs and sedans for the months October, November and December.

CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk had set a goal (before the coronavirus pandemic hit) to deliver 500,000 vehicles in the year 2020. Even though the virus forced its U.S. assembly plant to shut down for several weeks, the company stuck to its goal. The company's annual sales did see a rise of 36 per cent, but the company couldn't achieve its annual goal to deliver 500,000 vehicles. On Saturday, Tesla said that it delivered 499,500 vehicles for the year 2020, which includes 180,570 SUVs and sedans for the months October, November and December.

According to Tesla's report, in the first nine months of the year, the company had delivered just over 318,000 vehicles across the globe, with a record 139,300 in the third quarter. To reach half a million, Tesla was required to break that record and deliver 181,650 vehicles from October to December. Musk had sent an email to the company's employees in December for an increase in the production for the remaining quarter as much as possible. He wrote that Tesla has a "high-class problem" of demand being more than the production. But later the workers at the Fremont, California, plant were told that the Model S and X production lines would be shut down from Dec. 24 until Jan. 11, which means that the highest demand was for the Model 3 and Model Y.

Although the company was getting close to the number 500,000 it still needed a push to achieve its goal. On Tuesday, Musk tried another sales strategy, by tweeting that all Tesla cars getting delivered in the last three days of the year would get three months of the brand's "full self-driving" option free of cost. It costs $10,000 to purchase the self-driving option. Currently, only a few customers are testing the self-driving option on public roads. According to critics, Tesla does not have the proper sensors for complete self-driving vehicles.

While Tesla was very close to delivering 500,000 vehicles for the year, it missed it by a little. Musk, however, posted on his Twitter account on Saturday and gave away the news as a big win for the company, writing, "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."