New Tesla milestone shows how far it lags behind other automakers

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Tesla has just hit a milestone mark of 3 million total cars produced in the company’s lifetime. That might sound like a lot, but when compared to other auto manufacturers, the numbers aren’t that impressive at all.

Tesla CEO and eccentric billionaire Elon Musk recently took to Twitter to congratulate Tesla’s Giga Shanghai factory on reaching 1 million vehicles produced itself.

With that milestone, the company has surpassed 3 million total cars produced. That accounts for its facilities in California, Texas, Berlin, and Shanghai.

Congrats Giga Shanghai on making millionth car! Total Teslas made now over 3M. pic.twitter.com/2Aee6slCuv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2022

But that’s just a drop in the bucket for the automobile manufacturing market. Toyota, the world’s largest auto manufacturer, shipped around 10 million vehicles in 2021 alone.

The 3 million mark that Tesla just reached covers the entire lifespan of the business. Tesla has been selling cars to the public since 2008.

So, in almost 15 years, Tesla has only sold about a third of what legacy auto manufacturers are selling in a single year.

What is stopping Tesla from producing more vehicles?

Tesla is an incredibly hot topic in the automobile world, so why isn’t that hype leading to more production? In Tesla’s case, demand is not the problem at all.

In another tweet earlier this week, Musk expressed that production is the bigger challenge that Tesla is facing today. Despite the increasing demand, the company is having a hard time producing enough vehicles to keep up.

The company has apparently had some major issues in its supply chain over the last few years, likely due to the effects of the COVID pandemic.

Despite these troubles, Musk says the company could be on pace for a “record-breaking” second half of 2022.

So, while there continues to be a ton of hype around Tesla vehicles, the company is having a hard time producing enough vehicles to keep up. It will be interesting to see if Musk and Tesla can hold on to that demand for long enough so that it can get its production on track.

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