Tesla set a record in the fourth quarter and delivered more cars than ever before. From October to December, 484,507 vehicles were delivered to customers, the company announced on Tuesday. Analysts, on the other hand, had expected an average of 473,253 cars in their forecasts. Deliveries were about 11 percent higher than in the third quarter, when upgrades to assembly lines producing the updated Model 3 impacted production. Tesla achieved its goal of around 1.8 million vehicles delivered last year – also thanks to discounts for its electric cars.
This means that Tesla was more successful than its up-and-coming competitor in selling purely electric cars over the year China, BYD. The Chinese Tesla rival increased its sales by almost 62 percent last year. The world’s largest seller of battery-operated electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids announced on Monday that a good three million vehicles had been sold. There were around 1.6 million BEVs, i.e. purely electric cars. There were also 1.4 million plug-in hybrids.
Tesla, on the other hand, primarily pushed forward deliveries of its Model 3 in 2023, before some variants of the compact sedan lose the tax breaks through the US IRA subsidy package in the new year. Tesla delivered 461,538 Model 3 cars and Model Y SUVs, as well as about 23,000 units of its other models.
This year, Tesla wants to bring 2.2 million vehicles to customers, which would be an increase of around 22 percent, but less than the increase of around 38 percent achieved in 2023. The group plans to publish its business figures for the fourth quarter on January 24th.