Elon Musk’s Tesla Electric Car Sales Skyrocket

Elon Musk’s Tesla has stunned pundits by selling 241,300 electric cars in the US — a total of 102,000 more vehicles than the same quarter last year.

It’s the most Tesla has ever sold in a quarter. The company sold 367,500 in all of 2019.

Despite the wider trend of declining sales brought on by the global chip shortage, Tesla managed to deliver more vehicles once again despite the fact that major automakers saw huge drops this past quarter.

General Motors, the largest automaker in the US, said Friday morning that it only sold 446,997 vehicles in the third quarter — a 33 percent drop from the same period last year.

Tesla has avoided similar problems in part because it has been sourcing different semiconductors and rewriting software on the fly to make those chips work in place of the ones not currently available.

“Our delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct. Final numbers could vary by up to 0.5 percent or more,” the company said in a statement.

Strong Tesla car sales in China

Beyond that, the company continues to see strong sales in China, where it started making and selling vehicles in early 2020. The Model Y SUV has also become a popular option in the United States, and Tesla just started selling them in Europe, too.

Tesla’s web site still lists its headquarters as being in Palo Alto, Calif., but Elon Musk moved to Texas last year and the company is building a new factory in the Austin area.

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker now produces cars at its Shanghai plant, and U.S. factory in Fremont, California, while continuing to produce batteries domestically with Panasonic at their sprawling facility outside of Reno, Nevada.

During the period ending September 30, 2021, Tesla began to ship some lithium iron phosphate batteries from China to be used in Model 3 vehicles made for customers in the U.S.

Tesla also temporarily suspended some operations at its vehicle assembly plant in Shanghai, where it makes cars for customers in China and Europe. The halts were attributed to a global semiconductor shortage, which has posed a challenge to Tesla all year, and plagued the entire auto industry.

Tesla is also planning to host its annual shareholder meeting at its plant, now under construction, near Austin on October 7. Musk previously threatened to move Tesla’s headquarters out of California in the spring of 2020 when the state’s Covid-related health orders required Tesla’s Fremont factory to temporarily suspend operations for a few weeks.

At the time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNBC he was “not worried about Elon leaving any time soon,” and voiced support for Tesla.

Electric car sales in Norway nearly 80 percent up

Reuters reports, that demand for Tesla Inc’s mid-sized models helped push up electric car sales in Norway to nearly 80 percent of total car sales last month, data showed on Friday.

The country has been a global leader in switching to electric vehicles and seeks to become the first to end the sale of petrol and diesel engines by 2025.

Battery electric vehicles made up 77.5 percent of all new cars in September, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said, up from 61.5 percent a year ago.

Tesla Model Y, a compact sports utility vehicle, was the top selling vehicle with 19.8 percent of the car market followed by the company’s Model 3 sedan with 12.3 percent.

Tesla branching out into Greece

Eon Musk is now looking to have Tesla, Inc. branch out further into Greece, with the pioneering company already looking to hire staff in order to establish itself solidly in the country.

The promising new development comes following the Greek government’s announcement that a new series of measures will be implemented to further enhance the use of electric vehicles. Protocols for this incentive include subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles, including cars and bicycles.

Tesla’s renewed involvement with Greece is a continuation of other encouraging developments over the last several years, with the company forging ties with the country as early as 2018, with a research hub based in Democritus developed during that time.