Tesla becomes the best-selling luxury car brand, outselling 2021’s winner BMW in the USA. Let us elaborate on the U.S. luxury vehicle market! The electric carmaker Tesla recorded 484,351 new car registrations in 2022. It is nearly 41% jump compared to 2021. On the other side, the German brand BMW registered a 5.3% decrease in sales with 327,929 units in U.S. sales.
Mercedes-Benz stood third with 269,511 units last year. Lexus (Japan) arrived in fourth place with 258,704 units. The only other American brand to secure a place in the top ten rankings was Cadillac. Cadillac sold 133,726 units and finished in the sixth position. Overall luxury brands were down by 3.5% last year. The total units sold are just a little over 2 million units.
It is interesting to share that Tesla outsells all its luxury brand competitors by a big margin. Tesla offers only 4 EV models in its line-up. Most interestingly EV-only sales of BMW are only 14,000 units and Mercedes-Benz stood at 11,500 units in 2022.
Some may argue whether Tesla qualifies as a luxury vehicle. The pricing of the Tesla model line-up justifies the categorization as a luxury vehicle.
Just to add, Tesla builds only electric vehicles, presently it offers four different models in America –Model X, Model Y, Model S, and Model 3. The starting price of Model 3 is $46,990, it is the entry point into the brand. Model S, the higher-end model starts at just over $100,000. Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y together count for 95% of Tesla’s worldwide sales.
We all understand that Luxury cars make up only a small share of sales in America or any other country. Overall Tesla stood at 12th rank in sales in the U.S. in 2022. But the most important message in Tesla’s success is that acceptance of electric vehicles in all segments is on the rise in America.
