2020: When electric vehicle excitement kicked into high gear
Tesla’s fortunes have made quite a journey since April 2018, when CEO Elon Musk posted a photo on Twitter of himself apparently asleep, lying on a Model 3, holding a ragged cardboard sign that read “Bankwupt!”
It was an apparent April Fools’ joke, but Tesla’s finances were nothing to laugh about. Tesla reportedly came within about a month of bankruptcy.
Tesla persevered and began reporting profitable quarters in 2019. Tesla’s 2020 has been a roller coaster. Its stock began to surge in early 2020, before plummeting to its low for the year on March 18, as the pandemic hit and the world’s economy unraveled.
Also in March, Nio, a Chinese electric vehicle company, warned for the second time in three months that it was running out of cash to operate in the future. But Nio’s stock rallied this summer. It’s grown roughly 1200% this year, and it is now worth nearly as much as General Motors.
Electric vehicle experts say that excitement and energy around the industry hit a new peak in 2020. The stock prices and fundraising fortunes of electric vehicle companies worldwide have thrived in stark contrast to businesses that have generally stumbled through 2020’s pandemic.
Here’s a look back at the breakout year for electric vehicles.
