Tesla USA Sales Might Be Higher Than BMW USA Sales In August

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We’ve been covering this story in various ways, but it’s so shocking that we keep stumbling across new angles that scream for their own headlines.

We already saw that the Tesla Model 3 is walloping the sales of all competing small & midsize luxury cars. Even if you add together the sales of the 2 Series, 3 Series, 4 Series, and 5 Series, BMW has been moved from #1 to #2 in that category. We also expect that the Model 3 will be the 5th best selling car in the USA in August.

However, even those analyses didn’t prepare me for the news we’re predicting in this article. Yes, this piece is based on sales forecasts for August, not documented sales, but the overall story is what’s important and it seems to be a guarantee.

Aside from model vs. model comparisons, one of our quiet, behind-the-scenes team members suggested that I look into total BMW USA sales to see if Tesla was passing the notable automaker in terms of total monthly sales. Below is what I found.

In the month of July, BMW branded vehicles (all models) saw 21,982 sales. If you estimate an average delivery rate of 5,000 Model 3s per week in July, you already get to 20,000+ Tesla vehicles. If you add in 4,000+ units of the Model S and Model X combined, that’s 24,000+ Tesla vehicles sold in August. Of course, that means that Tesla would have more US sales than BMW if BMW’s sales are the same in August as in July.

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Tesla might not reach 5,000 Model 3 deliveries per week in August, and BMW might sell more than 24,000 vehicles, but simply having the question so open at this point is a shocker.

Another point worth considering is that many BMW sales are currently sales of SUVs, especially small SUVs or crossovers. If you remove SUV sales from both BMW’s and Tesla’s totals, you can see than BMW had 14,265 passenger car sales in July and there’s a good chance Tesla had a bit more than that. At the least, they were neck and neck last month. In August, though, the odds are very high that Tesla passenger car sales will be significantly higher than BMW passenger car sales. Even if you chop off 2,000 Model 3 sales from my forecast above, Tesla would handily win.

I’ll do an update of this report once BMW’s August sales come out. Hopefully we’ll receive some numbers from Tesla on August sales as well. But you don’t have to pick nits to see what the overall story is: Tesla is now either neck and neck with BMW in terms of US vehicles sales or Tesla has already passed up the epic German brand.

To wrap up, it just crossed my mind to compare the BMW dealership in my city with the Tesla store. I would bet a hefty chunk of cash that Tesla has a lot more people coming in and asking questions on a daily basis than BMW has, and it doesn’t hurt that Tesla has a small store in a popular mall — just across from the Apple store and Victoria’s Secret. BMW has a large dealership on the side of a big highway — no one is going to walk in off the street. It’s a different era. It’s the beginning of Tesla’s era.

Related Stories:

7 Charts — Tesla Model 3 vs The Competition (US Sales)

Tesla Model 3 Might = 5th Best Selling Car In USA In August

Tesla Model 3 Sales vs Small & Midsize Luxury Car Sales (USA), Tesla Now Crushing The Competition? — #CleanTechnica Report

BMW Now Means Boring Motoren Werke


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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