Yahoo Finance Tesla 2020 deliveries fall just shy of Musk's targets after bullish year
Tesla (TSLA) deliveries for 2020 fell just shy of founder and CEO Elon Musk’s personal target, but smashed through Wall Street estimates.
This ends a banner year for the electric car company, which has seen its stock surge 707%.
It delivered 499,550 vehicles last year, nearly 20,000 more than Wall Street estimates of 481,261, according to Refinitiv data reported by Reuters. Musk had set his sights on half a million.
Musk tweeted that he thought the company had just a 10% chance of “surviving it all” and that he was proud of his team for the near half a million in deliveries.
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. https://t.co/xCqTL5TGlE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2021
Two weeks ago, the carmaker as admitted into the S&P 500 (^GSPC), a long-anticipated move. Tesla now accounts for about 1.69% of the index.
With a market capitalisation of more than $640bn (£468bn) as of Friday’s close, the electric vehicle maker is the largest issue ever put into the index. For every $11.11 Tesla moves, the S&P 500 changes 1 point, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
In August, Tesla announced a 5-for-1 stock adjusted split. It also took advantage of its all-time highs to sell stock twice about 3 months apart.
The company has set its sights on new markets in Europe and Asia in recent months. At the end of November, Musk said he is also aiming to build the world’s largest battery factory at the site in the state of Brandenburg, Germany where he is currently constructing Tesla’s first European car plant.
READ MORE: Elon Musk plans ‘world’s biggest battery factory’ at Tesla plant near Berlin
Musk said in September that Tesla was developing a radically cheaper new electric car battery, but it would not be ready for about three years.
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