Tesla is one of the more recent automotive success stories as the company got its start 20 years ago and has grown to become the leading EV automaker in America. However, Tesla hasn’t kept its business isolated in the U.S., and it’s made a coordinated effort to grow and expand worldwide.

Here’s a look at how Tesla is not only having a strong year in the U.S., but it’s also having a strong year elsewhere in the world.

Tesla has been doing very well in the American auto market this year

It’s not a surprise that Tesla is the most popular EV automaker in America, but it might surprise some folks to learn just how well Tesla’s EVs are selling right now. GoodCarBadCar recently published an update to 2023’s sales numbers, and with the first half of the year finished, the Model Y was ranked as the fourth best-selling car in the U.S.

The only vehicles that are selling better than the Model Y are the big three pickup trucks. However, it’s worth mentioning that the Model Y’s 190,000 units in year-to-date sales is fairly close to the Ram series of pickup trucks, which was in third place. Ram has sold 223,000 units of those trucks so far this year, and that’s not a huge sales gap for the Model Y to cover.

This also means that the Model Y is selling better than many well-known cars, such as the Toyota Camry, the Honda CR-V, etc. The Model 3 is another popular Tesla, as it has sold over 120,000 units in the first half of the year. That’s more units than the Honda Civic or the Jeep Wrangler has sold. The rest of the EV segment is far behind those two Teslas. For example, the Ford Mustang Mach-E has 14,000 units in sales so far this year.

Tesla has also seen massive growth in the Chinese auto market

On top of that, CNN reported that Tesla has been selling very well in China this year as the EV automaker delivered nearly 250,000 units to the Chinese market in the second quarter of the year. For context, Tesla delivered 466,000 units worldwide in the second quarter, meaning the Chinese market was responsible for half of the automaker’s demand. 

Those numbers are also great when they’re compared to last year. Tesla’s deliveries to China in the second quarter are a 120% increase from the same time period last year. The EV automaker’s deliveries in June were also 19% higher than they were last year. These numbers reflect a booming EV market in China as the Chinese government rolled out subsidies for EVs, and Tesla cut prices on many of its cars.

The EV automaker has passed a big test, but it has more issues it needs to answer

One of the big questions that skeptics had back when Tesla was a small automaker making EVs in its California factory was if the company could scale itself to produce cars at a large scale like the traditional automakers have. Tesla built factories around the world to do just that, and based on these sales numbers, Tesla has answered that question with a resounding “yes.” 

That said, there is definitely room for improvement. One issue that many drivers and EV shoppers are aware of is the fact that Tesla’s vehicles don’t have a great reputation for reliability. This is one of the main issues that the EV automaker still has to answer, as reliability is important and Tesla has to show shoppers that it can produce hundreds of thousands of reliable EVs.