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 These early cars were eventually withdrawn from the U.S. market.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 Europe world to have all-electric cars topping the new car sales monthly ranking. The Tesla Model S has been the top selling new car four times, and the Nissan Leaf has topped the monthly new car sales ranking twice. In March 2014 the Tesla Model S also broke the 28-year-old record for monthly sales of a single model regardless of its power source, surpassing the previous record set in May 1986. , the stock of light-duty plug-in electric vehicles registered in France totaled 149,797 plug-in cars and electric utility vans delivered since 2010, , and accounting for registrations since 2010, the