Tesla reports 499,550 vehicle deliveries for 2020, an increase of around 36% on the number sold in 2019. This is an impressive result for 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic that forced Tesla to close some of its factories or suspend operations in early 2020. Tesla’s strong growth in 2020 is mainly due to the company’s investment in production capacity.
Even though the epidemic will continue into this year, global electric vehicle sales are estimated to grow by around 70% in 2021, and with accelerated investment in Tesla’s capacity to grow by more than 50%, global sales will exceed 750,000 units – is that too conservative a figure? Tesla’s sales are often constrained by production rather than demand. Even when Tesla was asked if it could sell 840,000 to 1 million cars by 2021, Musk replied that this was a possible figure.
Global electric vehicle sales growth will accelerate significantly in 2021. The new status of electric vehicles will come to the fore and electric vehicles will start to dominate. China and Europe will be the largest markets for electric vehicles in 2021, followed by North America, Japan and Korea.