To all those who question whether Tesla could manage one million vehicles in 2021 I offer the following:
Q4 2020 actual production 179,757 annualized 719,028
China Model Y is just beginning, Berlin will produce some vehicles in 2021. Fremont is still increasing. Probably 2021 will see increased volume of S and X. Frankly, it seems to me easier to envision one million that it is to imagine less.
As for battery supply, it is clear that this is one typical impediment to faster growth.
Other people can and will analyze this very closely. I simply look at the growth rate of BEV adoption in China, most of the EU and the prospects for many other countries. Then I think about the transition to 4680's by Panasonic, LG, and others plus Tesla itself. Then think about the fact that Tesla is currently using cells produced by most leading manufacturers other than BYD.
We can be very precise about all this. We cannot really be very accurate right now. Some, like
@Troy Teslike and
@The Accountant are adept at short term forecasts, and revive them rapidly as information improves. When we look at 2021 we have a plethora of major unknowns:
1. How quickly will Covid-19 be contained?
2. How likely is it that the US environmental policies will be adopted quickly enough to drive significant renewables and BEV demand?
3. When will GF Brandenburg have significant volumes?
4. Will Texas permit direct sales this year? Will GF Austin begin producing something?
5. How quickly will GF Shanghai ramp up volumes?
6. How quickly will all the planned 2021 Superchargers, Service facilities, sales facilities and shipping infrastructure ramp? Specifically will rail from Shanghai to Europe materialize reducing shipping time by half or better? How about shipping capacity? Port processing times?
All of those questions are quite material for 2021. As
@Mr Miserable has shown, there are major port processing, and transshipment issues (e.g. Panama Canal). Mostly we all ignore all those issues but in aggregate they become gigantic constraints now that Tesla will be transporting a million vehicles rather than half a million.
These are issues that have caused most major oems to establish factories all over the world. Tesla is moving at breakneck speed, unprecedented. Regularly TSLA factories have done the seemingly impossible and had major problems doing it. Now we're imagining nearly doubling of all the infrastructure to accommodate 2021 and be ready for 2022.
If ever this has been tricky to forecast 2021 is far more so. Personally I think they will do it plus amazing ramp in TE. This will be, as the legendary Chinese saying goes "life in interesting times".
