American Tesla made a record-breaking fourth quarter in 2021 with almost 309,000 delivered electric cars. Thus, the total number of deliveries for the year lands on just over 936,000 vehicles. This is an increase of 87 percent compared with the year before, when almost exactly half a million were shipped to customers.

Tesla expects an annual doubling of deliveries, seen over a multi-year period. The last ten years have also been a steady journey of growth, although the goal of doubling has not occurred every year.

Vehicles sold per year:

• 2021: 936 172
• 2020: 499 550
• 2019: 367,500
• 2018: 245,240
• 2017: 103,097
• 2016: 76 295
• 2015: 50,580
• 2014: 31,655
• 2013: 22 477
• 2012: 2,650
• 2011: 0

Two new factories in 2022

2021 has been challenging for most car manufacturers, mainly due to component shortages. CEO Elon Musk has described the year as a “supply chain nightmare”, but the company has succeeded better than most other manufacturers in part thanks to developers rewriting code to fit the chips they have nevertheless managed to get hold of, reports Automotive News.

The USA and China are the company’s largest markets and the majority of the delivered vehicles are Model 3 and Model Y.

Tesla currently has car factories in California and Shanghai. In 2022, manufacturing capacity will be added in Texas and Berlin.

2021 is also the year when Elon Musk became the world’s richest person and was named Person of the year by Time Magazine.