Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ensured that you have a ready baseline answer for the next time someone asks you how many cars Tesla has produced: 1,000,000. As of yesterday, it seems the electric automaker which built its first car in 2008 (the Roadster) and only put out a “mainstream” electric vehicle (if you could call the luxurious four-door Model S as much) in 2012, finally cracked the seven-figure ceiling for vehicle production. Tesla’s production achievement owes a spot of gratitude to the Model S, as well as the Model X crossover and—most critically—to the smaller and relatively affordable Model 3 sedan.
Car number 1,000,000 for Tesla turned out to be a bright red Model Y crossover, the automaker’s newest model that’s set to go on sale this year—early, in fact. From the looks of the car and its surroundings in the photos that Elon Musk Tweeted last night, the Model Y was produced at Tesla’s Fremont, California facility. (Tesla recently opened a new factory in China, which will initially build Model 3 sedans but will soon pivot to building Model Ys, too; there is also a new facility going up in Germany.) In one of Musk’s Twitter photos, the red Model Y is surrounded by Tesla workers—wholesome.
Tesla’s production figures will continue to rise, and probably will do so more rapidly than in previous years. Credit the continued production expansion worldwide for the Model 3, as well as the impending introduction of the Model Y (which is basically a taller, SUV-ified Model 3). The automaker keeps streamlining its production processes, ramping up relatively quickly from building a decent number of Model S and Model X vehicles to mass-producing the 3 and, soon, the Y (and maybe even the wild Cybertruck). When might we see the 2,000,000th Tesla? Probably sooner than the 12 years it took the company to build the first million.
