Tesla Model 3 Is #1 Top Selling American Car In USA

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Tesla’s production and sales growth is stunning. It is one of the most dramatic manufacturing stories in US history, let alone 2018. The sales records and eye-warping bar charts are in multiple important categories, not just in the electric vehicle space.

However, one story I haven’t seen highlighted yet is that the Tesla Model 3 was the #1 top selling American car in September.

The only three cars that sold more than this American success story were the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and Honda Civic.

In fact, if you keep going down the list, you don’t land on a car from another American automaker until you get to the #8 Ford Fusion. After that, you don’t get to a third one until you land on the #13 Chevy Cruze.

The crazy thing is that the US is supposed to be enthusiastically supporting US manufacturing companies, yet this headline is absent from the mainstream media and all but unnoticed by the American public.

Tesla's economic footprintWe reported earlier this year that Tesla contributed approximately $5.1 billion to the California economy in 2017. It supported 51,000 jobs — direct and indirect — last year.

That was all before the dramatic increase in Model 3 production this year. The 2018 total is sure to blow the 2017 total out of the water. That appears to be Tesla’s story — explosive growth — a story that is for some reason largely ignored by major media outlets. They’ve got a great American success story right under their noses and they’re flipping the script simply because they’ve fallen for or fallen into a vast Tesla smear campaign.

Also, that’s just California. Move east a bit and you find that Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada happens to be two years ahead of schedule, if you go back to Tesla’s 2014 vision for the factory. In August, the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development indicated that Tesla had been exceeding its Gigafactory performance targets.

“The audit found that Tesla spent a mind-boggling $459 million in capital at the Gigafactory in the fourth quarter, bringing cumulative capital spending up to $3.7 billion by the end of Q4 2017,” Kyle Field wrote for CleanTechnica.

“If you add in the $402 million in spending for the first half of 2018, Tesla has already exceeded $4 billion in capital spending at the Gigafactory. …

“On the employment front, Tesla added more than 34% more employees, with 832 new hires being added in Q4. The surge brought total enrollment at the Gigafactory up to 3,249. On top of the new Tesla employees, the Gigafactory employed 1,332 new construction workers, bringing the total number of construction workers to 13,743 — or more people than the town I grew up in.

“Indeed, the thought of a single facility only a few years old employing 16,992 employees is staggering and puts some scale to the work happening at the Gigafactory in support of Tesla’s Model 3 production ramp.”

It boggles the mind. Major media outlets are supposed to care about American jobs. They are supposed to care about manufacturing jobs for middle-class Americans. They are supposed to care about clean air for their and your children. They are supposed to care about a livable climate for our future. They are supposed to care about innovation and American ingenuity for the greater good.

Yet, the Tesla story they keep stumbling upon is a nonsensical narrative put forth by Tesla [TSLA] short sellers and the giant corporate powers that want to keep Tesla down. They skip all of this useful and positive news about Tesla — even missing the fact that the Tesla Model 3 is now the top selling car from an American auto manufacturer. Instead, they roll themselves down into a pile of financial propaganda sewage. Not cool, and for what purpose?

How can the US media so blatantly miss this American success story?

Is it because Elon Musk is South African by birth? 😉

Related: Why The Tesla American Success Story Ain’t Gettin’ No Love

Car USA Sales in September
Base Price in September
1. Toyota Camry 27,640 $23,495
2. Honda Accord 25,357 $23,570
3. Honda Civic 24,806 $18,940
4. Tesla Model 3 (est.) 24,040 $49,000
5. Toyota Corolla 20,797 $18,600
6. Hyundai Elantra 19,923 $16,950
7. Nissan Sentra 16,795 $16,990
8. Ford Fusion 15,878 $22,215
9. Nissan Altima 11,867 $23,260
10. Kia Optima 10,976 $16,800
11. Volkswagen Jetta 10,631 $18,545
12. Kia Soul 10,540 $16,490
13. Chevy Cruze 10,517 $17,995
14. Chevy Malibu 10,211 $22,090
15. Subaru Impreza 8,569 $18,595
16. Hyundai Sonata 7,735 $22,300
17. Toyota Prius 7,378 $23,475
18. Ford Focus 7,195 $17,950
19. Dodge Charger 6,879 $28,995
20. Kia Forte 6,470 $17,690

See other impressive Tesla sales stories and charts:

#1, #2, #3 — Tesla Model 3, S, & X = USA’s Safest Cars & Top Selling Electric Cars

25,913% Growth In Tesla Sales In 6 Years

Tesla Model 3 = 4th Best Selling Car In USA* (Maybe)

Yep, Tesla Is Gobbling USA Luxury Car Market — 8 Charts & Graphs

Tesla Crushes Quarterly Delivery Record With 83,500 Deliveries In Q3

Sorry, Elon — Tesla Model 3 Much Better Than I Expected (#CleanTechnica Review)

Tesla Model 3 Performance Is A Freakin’ Race Car — Unbeatable

Tesla Model 3 Is In A Class Of Its Own

Oh yeah, by the way, if you’re looking to buy a Tesla, appreciate my work, and need a referral code, here you go: http://ts.la/tomasz7234


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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