Tesla has shipped a record 499,550 vehicles throughout the year – or 99.91 percent. The final tally could vary by as much as 0.5 percent, so it’s possible that it will eclipse the 500,000 mark by the time it reveals the ultimate figures.

Tesla said in January 2020 that it expected to’comfortably exceed’ Musk’s goal of shipping 500,000 cars worldwide by the end of the year. The company had to close its new factory in China as well as its vehicle plant in Fremont, California for several weeks as the virus spread.

Tesla’s Tesla team had a 10 % chance of surviving at all. I thought we had (optimistically) a 10 per cent chance of survival at all.

Tesla delivered 88,400 vehicles in Q1, and 90,650 vehicles in Q2. In October, Tesla said it delivered 139,300 vehicles during the third quarter. All of this helped send the company’s stock price into the stratosphere.

Tesla produced 179,757 vehicles in the fourth quarter and delivered 180,570. The company wound up selling around 130,000 more vehicles than it did in 2019.

The 500,000-car sales goal is part of musk’s attempt to drag the auto industry into the clean energy age. Musk had once predicted Tesla would deliver 1 million vehicles in 2020. But he later backed away from that number after the company ran into trouble ramping up production of its first mass-market electric car.