Tesla Gets New Competition jurvetson / Flickr Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has held the lead in global sales among electric vehicle (EV) companies, likely since it started selling cars in China in 2017. It already dominated the U.S. market, where its sales took off two years earlier. The United States and China are the two largest car markets in the world.Tesla has never had any meaningful competition in the United States. Several tiny car companies have launched, but none has sales traction. Large manufactu ...