Tesla produced 77,000 vehicles in Q1, worldwide. Let's assume they hit their target of 400,000 vehicles in 2019. They would still need to triple production after that point to reach the top 20 of auto manufacturers in 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor...
And is being the top 20 some sort of required metric for being a "valid" car manufacturer? I'm growing increasingly tired of these arguments that because they're so far behind the "established" players that they'll never be successful or worth supporting. A company can be successful and valuable while not being the absolute leader. It's a bit disingenuous to put them down for not making as many cars as conglomerates that have been around for ~100 years...
I'm not putting Tesla down for not making as many cars as century-old conglomerates. They don't even make as many cars as Chinese and Korean manufacturers that were founded in the 1980's. In fact, the century-old conglomerates themselves manufacture fewer cars than Toyota and Volkswagen.
