Tesla's Fremont emerges as most productive North American car plant in 2021

The most productive automobile manufacturing plant in North America in 2021 was Tesla Motors’ original factory in Fremont, California. After a deep analysis of production data from more than seventy production American facilities, Bloomberg reported that the former NUMMI facility that was acquired by Tesla in 2010 produced more vehicles than any other facility last year. More precisely, Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing plant produced an average of 8,550 vehicles per week in 2021.
In comparison, Japanese manufacturing giant Toyota Motor Corp.’s Georgetown, Kentucky-based plant produced 8,427 vehicles per week; while luxury automaker BMW’s Spartanburg facility in South Carolina produced 8,343 vehicles. Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan-based truck manufacturing facility produced 5,564 units last year.
With a total production of around 444,600 units in 2021, the Fremont facility, however, could not surpass other manufacturing facilities like Giga Shanghai – Tesla’s own mega plant in China that tripled its output in 2021 to roughly 486,000. Overall, Elon Musk-led Tesla enjoyed a year-over-year growth of 83 per cent in its global production to 930,422 vehicles.
The Fremont plant was originally built by General Motors (GM) in the 1960s. it was initially jointly operated by GM and Toyota’s NUMMI JV until after the former manufacturer’s 2009 bankruptcy. The plant has been a work in progress ever since the start of the Model S production in 2012. However, there are some limitations to its further expansion. That is why Tesla is focusing new plansts like Giga Texas and Giga Berlin.
In spite of its impressive growth as well as dominance in EVs, Tesla is still merely the tenth biggest automobile manufacturer in North America. GM, Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corporation, Stellantis, and Honda are still larger than Tesla in terms of overall production.
Last year was undoubtedly a remarkable year for Tesla, despite various issues like worldwide shortage of semiconductor chips that stifled production of vehicles around the globe. The year of 2022 is likely set to become another record-breaking period in terms of EV production as the company’s two new plants in Austin (Texas) and Berlin (Germany) have started production.
Furthermore, Tesla CEO Musk has declared that production at the Fremont and Shanghai plants will be increased by 50 per cent. It may be noted here that the company has plans to increase EV deliveries by around 50 per cent every year. Increasing popularity of EVs is also expected to see Tesla climbing further.
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