Dow Jones – Elon Musk Steers Tesla to Record Deliveries — Update

By Rebecca Elliott 

Tesla Inc. fell just shy of its goal of delivering at least half a million vehicles after the Covid-19 outbreak temporarily closed the company’s lone U.S. car plant.

The Silicon Valley electric-car maker Saturday said it delivered a record 499,500 vehicles last year, up from roughly 367,500 the year prior. Analysts surveyed by FactSet on average expected 493,000 Tesla deliveries in 2020. Tesla said it produced 509,737 vehicles last year.

The company’s resilience during the pandemic that has reduced road travel and dampened auto sales globally has fueled investor exuberance for the electric-car maker. Its stock soared more than 700% last year. The company in the coming months faces a difficult task as it looks to introduce additional vehicle models and open new factories in Germany and Texas as part of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s growth ambitions.

Tesla‘s deliveries last year were buoyed by demand in China. Tesla began delivering cars from its new Shanghai plant in late 2019. Those sales helped to offset production slowdowns in the U.S., where Tesla had to close its Fremont, Calif. plant for several weeks starting in March as local authorities imposed restrictions on businesses to slow the spread of the virus.

Tesla ended the year with 180,570 deliveries in the final quarter, a record topping the 139,593 vehicles that went to customers in the prior three-month period.

The surge in deliveries has stoked Wall Street expectations for Tesla to post a record profit for the period and its first full-year in the black when it reports 2020 fourth-quarter earnings in a few weeks. It would continue Tesla‘s run of five quarters in a row of profit that led to the company’s inclusion in the S&P 500 index last month.

Tesla, which last year became the world’s most valuable auto maker, has lofty growth ambitions. The company said it plans to produce 20 million cars annually by 2030.

Volkswagen AG, the world’s bestselling auto maker in 2019, sold around 11 million cars that year.

Tesla hasn’t formally released a target for 2021 vehicle deliveries, but Mr. Musk said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call that it likely would be in the vicinity of 840,000 to one million cars.

To underpin its plans, the company is working to expand its car-making footprint to four facilities from two. Tesla aims this year to open a factory near Berlin, its first in Europe, and add a second U.S. plant that it is building outside Austin, Texas. Mr. Musk also has said that the company plans to begin selling vehicles in India this year.

Tesla has historically struggled with the introduction of new vehicles and production expansion. Among the challenges the company faces this year are expected to be the introduction of new vehicle-production lines for its electric pickup truck and semitrailer truck. Mr. Musk has already signaled some of the new vehicle technologies Tesla is introducing to the Model 3 car it will build in Germany could spell delays.

Write to Rebecca Elliott at rebecca.elliott@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 02, 2021 12:53 ET (17:53 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.