Tesla has just announced that its EV deliveries has exceeded 936,000 in 2021, including the new quarterly record of 308,600 in Q4 2021.

The question is how high might it go in 2022, as the long estimated delivery times indicate strong demand?

In general, Tesla expected that the long-term average annual growth of vehicle deliveries would be around 50%. That would be 1.4 million in 2022.

However, we guess that it might be more than that, especially since in 2021 the growth was over an 87% increase year-over-year.

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The starting point is over 936,000 in 2021. Assuming that the rate of 300,000+ units per quarter would be maintained for all of 2022, the company would be at 1.2 million total.

But there is no reason to remain flat at a particular rate, as the company expands Model 3/Model Y production and sales, is ramping up the refreshed Model S/Model X, as well as adding new plants.

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In terms of new plants, according to the latest reports, Tesla Giga Austin in Texas should start production soon, and Tesla Giga Berlin in Grünheide near Berlin, Germany also appears ready to start production.

If those two new plants would add 300,000 together, with a maintained rate from Q4 by the plants in California and China, the total would then exceed 1.5 million. That's 600,000 additional BEVs in a year.

We believe that there is potential to go even higher than that. The two new plants probably will be ramping up production not only over 2022, but also in 2023 - increasing volume and adding new products (just like the Tesla Giga Shanghai).

To produce 1.5 million all-electric cars, Tesla will need an unprecedented amount of batteries: over 100 GWh.

  • at an average of 70 kWh/car: 105 GWh
  • at an average of 80 kWh/car: 120 GWh

* Tesla cars usually have a capacity from about 60 kWh to about 100 kWh (97% of the new Tesla cars had less than 85 kWh).