Lawrence Allan
Automotive Content Editor
Tesla remains one of the world’s most popular electric car manufacturers more than two decades on from its creation.
Nearly 8.5 million Teslas have been produced and sold around the world, with the brand’s record year of 2023 making up 1.8 million of those.
While the Tesla Model Y continues to dominate the European electric car market in 2025, long-standing car companies and new Chinese market entrants are beginning to fight back.
Our latest Tesla electric car statistics report answers all the key questions around the Tesla brand, giving insight into how many Teslas are sold each year and detailing the brands that are challenging Tesla’s market dominance.
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To date, Tesla has built around 8,450,000 vehicles for all global markets, having announced the production of its seven millionth car in October 2024.
This figure includes the circa 2,450 Tesla Roadsters produced in the brand’s early days. By the end of 2012, Tesla had produced an estimated total of around 3,000 cars, including some early Model S variants.
It wasn’t until 2013 when Tesla production truly began to ramp up as the Model S began to sell in volume. That year 22,477 cars were produced, rising to 31,655 in 2014 and a significant milestone of 50,658 cars produced in 2015.
The number of cars produced massively ramped up from 2018 (245,000 cars produced) and beyond with the launch of the Model 3 and subsequently the Model Y. Tesla built over 500,000 cars in 2020 and nearly reached 1 million in 2021, before producing 1.7 million cars in 2021.
(based on data from Tesla Inc.)
Figures released by Tesla from the first three quarters of 2025 show the brand has built 1,120,209 cars this year.
In the third quarter of 2025, Tesla claimed it delivered a record 497,099 cars and produced 447,450.
However, results in the first and second quarter of 2025 weren’t as strong as in 2024:
In total in 2024, Tesla produced 1,773,443 cars. This means that Tesla would need to produce over 653,000 cars in the last quarter of 2025 to match last year’s figures.
Analysts suggest this isn’t likely, and Tesla is expected to finish on a 10% decrease in production and deliveries for the full year of 2025.
(Based on data from Tesla Inc, Visible Alpha)
When it comes to overall electric car sales in Europe, the biggest three countries are Germany, the UK and France. Together these countries make up 50% of Europe’s new EV market. This breaks down as follows:
Focusing on the UK, 2024 was a positive year for Tesla in terms of deliveries, with the Tesla Model Y being comfortably the best-selling EV in the UK. 32,862 were registered here in 2024.
That’s nearly twice the number of Tesla Model 3s sold in the UK in 2024: 17,425. Despite that the Model 3 still placed third in the UK’s most popular electric cars – narrowly behind the Audi Q4 e-tron.
In 2025, figures until the end of October show Tesla has registered a total of 35,455 cars in the UK. That’s a 4.5% decline on the same period in 2024, and gives the brand a market share of just over 2.06% – just below brands like BYD and MINI.
(Based on data from Tesla Inc., SMMT, Autovista Group)
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In terms of outright electric car sales figures Tesla and BYD were close in 2024. BYD shifted 1.76 million EVs compared to Tesla’s 1.79 million, according to figures from each brand.
However, BYD has a much broader range of vehicles to sell, from hybrid cars to commercial vehicles. That makes it much larger overall, having shifted 4.3 million vehicles globally in 2024 – a brand record.
In the UK, the Chinese carmaker’s growth has been vast. So far in 2025 BYD has registered 35,604 new cars across the country, a massive 576% increase on the same period in 2024, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
That puts BYD ahead of brands such as Cupra, Mazda and MINI, and gives it a 2.26% market share in the UK.
That figure is also ahead of Tesla, but only just. The US carmaker registered 34,944 vehicles in the UK so far in 2025, giving it a 2.21% market share – down from 36,160 and 2.39% in 2024.
(Based on data from Tesla Inc., BYD, SMMT)
Despite Tesla’s continued dominance across much of the electric car space, the bigger picture across the entire automotive arena is less all-conquering.
EVs broke the 20% market share barrier in 2024 with 17.8 million sales in 2024. Data from market analysts Autovista Group reveals that just over 13 million electric vehicles hit the roads globally from January to August.
That suggests industry forecasts of 20 million global EV sales by the end of 2025 should be correct, barring any big decline in the fourth quarter. That should see EVs make up 25% of the market.
But that still leaves over 60 million new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars flooding the roads each year.
(Based on data from Autovista Group, Statista)
The Tesla Model Y is comfortably the best-selling model that Tesla has ever made. It was the world’s most popular new car altogether in 2023, and the best-selling EV in 2024.
Over 1.2 million examples of the Model Y were sold in 2023 alone, beating out cars like the Toyota RAV4 and Corolla.
(Based on data from Tesla Inc.)
Yes, Tesla only makes electric vehicles and has only manufactured EVs since it began making cars in 2008. Tesla does not make hybrid, petrol, diesel or even hydrogen cars.
Tesla’s long-term mission has been to ‘democratise’ the electric car, proving EVs can be just as fast, capable and easy to live with as petrol or diesel cars.
Tesla’s market-leading network of ‘Supercharger’ electric vehicle chargers gives it a global footprint, and is one of the biggest reasons for the brand’s continued sales success.
Tesla states that it has over 70,000 superchargers in operation across 54 countries, capable of adding up to 172 miles of range to a Tesla EV in 15 minutes.
Tesla has a total of 2,154 Supercharger charge points in operation across the UK as of the end of October 2025.
That makes Tesla’s Supercharger network the second largest rapid and ultra-rapid electric car charging network in the UK, behind Instavolt.
(Based on data from ZapMap).
Charging a Tesla is easy if you’re using the brand’s Supercharger charging network. Just plug in and the car will sync automatically with the charger, while your linked Tesla account handles payment.
The charging port on a Tesla is on the left-hand side of the car at the rear, just in front of the taillight. It sits behind a small door that electrically opens via pressing on the door, an icon on the touchscreen or an icon on the Tesla app. You can even open it using voice control.
You can then use the Supercharger’s cable to plug into the car. You’ll need to wait a few moments for the car to connect to the charger, and once charging has begun your car’s touchscreen (or the Tesla app) will tell you how long you need to wait for your desired charge level.
It’s also possible to charge your Tesla on other charge networks (via contactless payment card, and RFID membership card or the network’s app) or at home via a wallbox installed in your driveway.
Tesla, like many carmakers, is focused on hitting sales targets for both the end of each quarter and the end of each year.
This means you are more likely to find keen discounts or incentives at the end of the four quarters (for example in the last week of March, June, September or December). Tesla tends to offer favourable leasing rates, particularly on vehicles already available in its inventory.
The same applies to the end of the year. This is when Tesla looks to shift outgoing ‘Model Year’ versions of its cars that it already has in stock, often with significant discounts.
Another good time to buy a Tesla (if value matters most) is when a new or updated model is coming in. For example, when the newly redesigned Model Y began shipping to customers in 2025, there were reports of high discounts off the outgoing version as Tesla looks to shift available stock.
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