According to a Musk tweet, Tesla has just built its 1,000,000th car. The red Model Y (effectively a taller, more spacious version of the Model 3, of which deliveries are about to begin in the States) rolled off the production line a few days ago.

Founded by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003, it’s taken the Californian company some 17 years to reach the million-car milestone. Elon Musk (and his chequebook) came onboard in 2004, two years before the first-gen Roadster was revealed and four years before it would actually go on sale.

The Model S went into production in 2012, followed by the X in 2015 and the 3 in 2017. Tesla started building the Model Y this year, while a second-gen Roadster and the Cybertruck should both materialise in the not-too-distant future.

Just last year Tesla started building cars at its third Gigafactory in China, and confirmed a fourth will be built just outside Berlin. So assuming everything keeps going well, it should arrive at the two million mark pretty quickly.

STORY Tom Harrison
PHOTOS Elon Musk on Twitter