Electric car Delco. These early cars were eventually withdrawn from the U.S. market. California electric automaker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on what would become the Tesla Roadster (2008), which was first delivered to customers in 2008. The Roadster was the first highway legal serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells, and the first production all-electric car to travel more than per charge. Tesla global sales passed 250,000 units in September 2017. The Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance achieved the milestone of 500,000 units electric vehicles sold in October 2017. Tesla sold its 200,000th Model S in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Plug-in electric vehicles in the United States the Prius PHV and the Ford C-Max, allowed plug-in hybrids to take the lead over pure electric cars during 2012, with 38,584 PHEVs sold versus 14,251 BEVs. Sales of pure electric cars (about 47,600 units) in 2013 were almost even with plug-in hybrids (about 49,000 units), due to large sales of the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf during 2013. , cumulative sales of plug-in electric vehicles in the U.S. since December 2010 were led by plug-in hybrids, with 150,946 units sold representing 52.7% of all plug-in car sales, while 135,444 all-electric cars (47.3%) had been delivered to retail customers.