Tesla delivered nearly 1 million vehicles in 2021

Tesla delivered a record 936,172 vehicles in 2021, an 87 percent increase from the 499,550 vehicles it delivered in 2020, as outlined in a Tesla report. It is reported that the company successfully delivered 308,600 vehicles in the last quarter of 2021 alone, up from 241,300 in the third quarter.

Of those deliveries, 11,750 were Model S and X, while 296,850 were Model 3 and Y. Of these, the Model 3 and Y also accounted for the majority of the overall annual deliveries of 936,172 units, while the Model S and X delivered 24,964 units.

Tesla has previously said it plans to increase deliveries by about 50 percent a year, and although it didn't reach 1 million deliveries, it still exceeded its annual growth target. In November, an internal memo showed Tesla CEO Elon Musk telling his employees not to rush to complete deliveries by the end of the quarter but to focus on cutting costs, noting that he expected a wave of vehicles from Tesla's California and Chinese factories to reach customers in December.

The ongoing chip shortage has caused some automakers to have to put the brakes on, and Tesla is no exception. Last year, Tesla rewrote its own software to help mitigate the effects of the shortage, in addition to having to briefly shut down production at its California plant in February. Some customers have even reported that USB ports are missing from their vehicles, which could be due to a shortage.

Still, after car rental company Hertz added 100,000 Teslas to its fleet, Tesla's value exceeded $1 trillion in October. The company even hit its most profitable quarter of all time in the third quarter of 2021, but that could change given that earnings for the last quarter of 2021 have yet to be announced.