Quartz has a summary of Tesla Motors sales figures from the August edition of the California New Car Dealers Association newsletter, and the news is good for the upstart electric car company. In June 2013, Tesla sold more vehicles in California than ten big-name brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mitsubishi, Porsche, and Volvo.

The news comes in the same week that Tesla's flagship Model S achieved a five-star, across-the-board safety rating by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (a result so high that, in Wired's words, it "broke the crash-testing gear"). Consumer Reports loves the Model S, too, noting that it "outscores every other car" in their rating system.

The Model S popularity continues to spike nationwide, but not everyone is excited about the vehicle—or about Tesla founder Elon Musk's insistence on selling Tesla cars directly to the public. Yahoo News recently ran a story discussing the legislative efforts underway in Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, and Virginia to prevent Tesla from dealing directly with customers and instead conform to antiquated franchise laws requiring them to only sell cars via independently owned car dealerships. A recent White House petition requesting Tesla be allowed to skip dealerships and sell to customers without a middleman easily passed the 100k signature threshold required for an administration response, which has not yet been issued.

Musk appears determined to stay the course and fight for what he feels is the correct way to sell his cars. "If we were to go through the traditional dealer path," he said, "the result would be a disaster."

Tesla must be doing something right; the sales numbers speak for themselves. They're producing a product that people clearly are interested in buying; they're also managing to move significant inventory even though their cars start at about $63,000 and rapidly increase in price with options.