Tesla has announced a new sales milestone — 3 million units of the Model 3 have been sold worldwide since its debut in mid‑2017. While this benchmark is remarkable in its own right, it becomes even more impressive when considered in relation to the time the vehicle has been on sale. With 3 million units sold, that equates to a staggering pace of approximately one car every 90 seconds over the past eight years.
Interestingly, the announcement was made by Tesla China VP Grace Tao on Weibo, and as of the time of publication, has not been announced by the official Tesla account on X.
When Tesla introduced the Model 3, production hiccups were front and center. Many can recall the early struggles for the company in 2017 to hit even 5,000 units per week—bottlenecks at Fremont cast serious doubts on ramping up. Yet, despite those early teething issues, Tesla steadily amplified throughput thanks to process efficiencies and the opening of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Despite those early struggles, Tesla persisted, and it paid off with a big milestone in June 2021: the Model 3 became the first electric vehicle ever to exceed 1 million sales globally. From that point on, Tesla sold another 2 million in just over four years.
Thanks to consistent deliveries, Model 3 held the title of the world’s top-selling plug-in electric car from 2018 through 2020. That dominance continued—Tesla claims the sedan ranked first in global pure-EV sales for seven straight years.
Fast-forward to 2023 and 2024, and the Model 3 was only overtaken as sales leader because of its younger sibling, the Model Y, which itself has already eclipsed the 3 million mark in total sales and has become the world’s best-selling car overall.
