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Tesla’s 2020 Aftermath: A look at the shorts who said 500k was ‘absurd’
Tesla’s 2020 showing has created an aftermath of reflection from bulls and bears alike. Despite the company coming off of a record year with a massive 500,000 vehicle delivery and production rate, which was considered “absurd” by some short-sellers in years past, Tesla proved the doubters wrong once again.
Everyone knows that the stock market is really an unpredictable and unfathomably tough thing to read. Some of the world’s best analysts can misread even the slightest bit of data and be miles off of what a particular stock accomplishes. Tesla, which is one of the more polarizing stocks despite its 700% climb in 2020, has had doubters since day 1. The difference between doubters of Tesla and doubters of other companies is that Tesla shorts and bears are some of the most vocal on Wall Street because the company’s momentum and hype have been talked about for nearly a decade.
2020 was easily the toughest year for the U.S. automotive market since the Great Recession of 2008. Tesla was one of the few companies that accomplished the feat of sustaining growth through the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which crippled many industries, not just the automotive one, for most of the year. However, doubts on Tesla set in way back when the company started in 2008. Six years after Tesla built the original Roadster, analysts were still curious about the automaker’s capabilities moving forward and doubted that it would be able to scale its production to half-a-million cars by 2020. The old saying goes, “hindsight is 2020,” and as Tesla reached its goal for the year, it is easy to sit back and judge those who were wrong. However, their reasoning for not reaching 500,000 vehicles was completely flawed, and everything Tesla said it would do years ago has been accomplished.
Mark Spiegel called 500,000 cars in 2020 “absurd”
Mark Spiegel is a notable Tesla short-seller and has been bearish on the automaker’s stock for years. In 2014, Spiegel posted an article to Seeking Alpha, titled, “Why Projections For Tesla To Sell 500,000 Cars In 2020 Are Absurd.”
Spiegel used data like the compound annual growth rate to support his evidence, stating, “If Tesla sells 35,000 cars this year, 500,000 sales in 2020 would imply a six-year CAGR of 56%.” Additionally, Spiegel did not believe that Tesla could scale growth at that rate in six years because “no complex product manufacturer has ever grown that quickly from a revenue base of $3 billion or more.” But hey, there is a first time for everything.
Microsoft was able to scale its CAGR by 32.1% from 1993 to 1999, which is a six-year time span and was identical to Tesla’s outlook that was challenged in the 2014 article. While Microsoft managed a remarkable 32.1% CAGR because of the evergrowing popularity of the computer and other technology, Tesla’s overwhelming growth throughout the same timespan was due to tech developments, industry influence, proving affordability of electric cars, and a consistent growth rate that proved the company was here to stay.
Spiegel’s outlook for 2020 was 186,000 cars sold by Tesla, but the company managed to nearly accomplish this figure in Q4 alone, as it delivered 180,570 cars in the final three months of the year. Spiegel was way off in his predictions, and Tesla’s domination in 2020 was just one of many examples of analysts getting it completely wrong.
Tesla wasn’t a prime candidate for scaling its products, according to Thomas Bartman
In an April 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review, Thomas Bartman wrote an opinionated piece called, “Why Tesla Won’t Be Able to Scale.” Bartman claimed that Tesla’s EVs were “not actually disruptive, which will likely cause it to struggle to scale.” Bartman didn’t have the Model 3 to use as a benchmark at the time, but he doubted that Tesla would be able to sell a vehicle for $35,000, which it did.
“Tesla plans to launch a ‘mainstream’ luxury car, the Model 3,” Bartman wrote, “which it estimates will cost $35,000, although analysts have begun to question the feasibility of reaching that price point.” Tesla did discontinue this variant in late 2020, but the Standard Range Model 3 was available for over three years. The Standard Range+ was only $2,770 more and was more popular because of the range. Also, the SR was not listed on Tesla’s website and had to be ordered in a showroom or over the phone.
Bartman believed that Tesla had launched two good vehicles in the Model S and Model X, but legacy auto would quickly catch up after a few years. However, this has been proven wrong repeatedly, as companies like Mercedes-Benz and Audi have failed to launch effective and competitive EVs that are comparable to Tesla’s models globally. The Model 3 continues to dominate in China and the U.S., and the Model Y is gaining plenty of momentum as it nears the one-year mark since its first deliveries.
Tesla China Model Y attracts flocks of customers in local showrooms
“As Tesla attempts to scale, it’s likely to discover that its internal impediments, combined with competitor responses, make it much harder than anticipated,” Bartman said. “The symptoms of these problems will manifest as product launch delays, cost overruns, and higher than expected prices.”
The only issue is that Tesla was able to internally combat production issues, even though Elon Musk has admitted many times that Model 3 manufacturing was “production hell.” The company has effectively beaten all of its competitors to launching an effective and cost-worthy electric car by launching four of them.
Hindsight is 2020
With 2020 over (thank God), Tesla and analysts are already looking forward to the new year. 2021 has plenty in store for Tesla: Two production facilities in the U.S. and Europe are set to begin manufacturing efforts, the launch of the Cybertruck at the tail-end of the year, and a possible refresh of the Model S and Model X. Moving forward, Tesla shorts may be more cautious, especially considering their traumatic $38 billion loss this year.
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SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
SpaceX’s Crew-13 Dragon reached the ISS in under eight hours, and NASA confirmed a record.
SpaceX now owns every spot on the list of the five fastest trips a U.S. spacecraft has ever made to the International Space Station, and its newest entry beat the old mark by more than four hours.
Crew Dragon Grace docked to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. ET on October 1, just 7 hours and 55 minutes after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. NASA confirmed the milestone in a space station blog update, writing that the flight “marked the fastest launch‑to‑docking of a U.S. spacecraft in the history of the International Space Station.”
The previous U.S. record also belonged to Dragon. SpaceX’s uncrewed CRS-31 cargo mission reached the station in a little over 12 hours in November 2024. The fastest crewed trip before last week was Crew-11, which took 14 hours and 43 minutes in August 2025, according to Space.com.
A post that Elon Musk reposted on Monday filled out the rest of the ranking. Behind Crew-13, CRS-31 and Crew-11 sit Axiom’s Ax-2 mission at 15 hours and 35 minutes and NASA’s Crew-4 at 15 hours and 44 minutes. All five flew on Dragon.
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Crew-13 carried NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. NASA had projected a docking around 8 p.m. ET, as Teslarati reported the day before launch, and Dragon arrived nearly an hour early. Our launch day coverage noted that the flight was lined up to be the quickest Crew Dragon transit yet.
The speed came from timing more than hardware. SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman said the station “was in an opportune spot in space,” which let Dragon start closing the gap almost immediately after reaching orbit. “This is close to the fastest it could be,” she added. Most Crew Dragon flights still take close to a day, using a series of Draco thruster burns to raise and phase their orbit before arrival.
Dragon’s next job at the station is a departure. NASA said Monday it is targeting 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 7, for Crew-12 to undock, setting up a splashdown off the coast of California around 11:34 a.m. on Thursday. Clearing that port makes room for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final set of iROSA solar arrays.
Dragon remains NASA’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner stays grounded, and the agency recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
