Elon Musk Says Tesla Likely To Make Over 1.5M Cars This Year

Tesla Inc TSLA is likely to make 1.5 million cars in 2022, CEO Elon Musk told analysts on a post-earnings call on Wednesday.

What Happened: The billionaire entrepreneur said Tesla has a reasonable shot at delivering a 60% rise in production in 2022 over the last year.

Tesla produced 930,422 electric vehicles last year and delivered 936,172 units.

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“It seems likely we will be able to produce over 1.5 million electric cars this year,” Musk said.

“We are aspiring to head to 20 million units a year. We are only 5% along the way towards that goal. We are confident of exceeding 50% annual growth over several years.”

Tesla's production and delivery numbers shot past the one million mark each in the past 12 months, a first for the EV maker.

See Also: Tesla Zips Past The Million Mark For Both Output And Deliveries Over Past 12 Months

Why It Matters: Austin, Texas-based Tesla reported a record first quarter despite chip shortages, inflationary pressures, and COVID-19 outbreaks hurting production in Giga Shanghai.

The company's recently opened Giga Berlin and Giga Texas factories are expected to add a million units when they are running at full capacity. 

Tesla said it aims to ramp up manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible.

“With new factories, the initial ramp-up looks slow but it eventually grows exponentially,” Musk told analysts. 

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives last month estimated Tesla “could now be on a 2-million-unit run-rate exiting 2022."

Price Action: Tesla stock closed 4.96% lower at $977.2 a share on Wednesday, but rose 5.5% in extended trading following quarterly results.