Excellent point, and you are right that I did not realize Ford's early growth curve was that steep. Oops. I also did not realize how much Ford dominated the automotive sector in those early years or how widely variable sales were in that era. The numbers here were really interesting to look at in detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Fig...

So maybe I should move my statement around a bit. Ford is the fastest growing automaker over its first 20 years of existence (clearly). But Ford also built cars in its first year.

Who was the fastest from the first car off the line to the 11 year mark (Tesla's current state)? Hmm, its really close, with both at ~300k for the trailing twelve months, if I'm not mistaken (Ford in 1914). And the following year, Ford did about 500k, which is remarkably close to Tesla's goal for the next year.

I've been thinking for a while now that history was repeating itself in more ways than people realize and this kind of confirms it for me. This is all really interesting stuff. Thanks for pointing out my error! :)