Tesla stated on Wednesday that it delivered over 1.2 million of its Model Y electric SUVs in 2023, making it the best-selling vehicle in the world, whether it’s a car or truck, electric or not.
As Tesla put it, “the best-selling vehicle on the planet is an electric vehicle.”
The Model Y is manufactured in the U.S., in Fremont, California, and Austin, Texas; in China, at Tesla’s Shanghai plant; and in Germany, at its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, in Grünheide.
The sales dominance declaration crosses the finish line a bit early. Toyota has not yet released global sales totals for 2023 for the second-place (and longtime sales champion), the Corolla. But with the Corolla hovering around 1.12 million for 2022, it’s likely that the Model Y will reach that mark.
In its fourth-quarter 2023 shareholder presentation, published on Wednesday, Tesla also highlighted the production at its Fremont factory, one of the assembly locations for the Model Y.
“Before Tesla purchased the Fremont factory, the previous owner’s record production was nearly 430,000 vehicles manufactured in a single year,” Tesla stated in its shareholder report. “In 2023, Tesla’s Fremont factory produced almost 560,000 vehicles thanks to our ~20,000 employees based in Fremont.”
“What would have been a derelict shopping mall is America’s most productive auto plant,” added CEO Elon Musk. “It was abandoned when we acquired it, and now it is the most productive plant in this whole part of the world.”
Adding a special touch to that statement, the Fremont plant, formerly a joint venture between Toyota and GM called NUMMI, used to assemble Toyota Corolla models, with a Toyota Corolla being the last model assembled when the plant closed in 2010.
While the Model Y figures represented a triumph for Tesla, its total deliveries were not much more than the 1.8 million vehicles it had anticipated earlier in the year; conservatively inferred by Musk at that time. Tesla’s total for 2023 amounted to 1,808,581 deliveries and 1,845,985 vehicles produced, including a period when prices were significantly reduced. Overall, that was a 38% increase in deliveries and a 35% increase in production, both year-over-year, barely enough to offset BYD’s acceleration in electric vehicle sales in the fourth quarter.
Musk did not speak about the $25,000 Tesla electric vehicle reported earlier that day, but he did provide a bit more information on how the company could continue to grow, including vehicles built on that next-generation platform.
“It’s worth noting that if you look at the average selling price of the other best-selling vehicles in the world, they are much cheaper than the Model Y,” Musk said, referring to the Toyota RAV4 and Corolla, and the Honda Civic. “So people are really stretching their wallets to be able to afford a Tesla.”
The company’s next-generation cost-cutting platform will go into production in the second half of 2025 with a “new and groundbreaking manufacturing line at Giga Texas,” according to Musk.
“It will be head and shoulders above any other manufacturing technology anywhere in the world,” Musk added. “It’s the next level.”
