The Tesla Model 3 absolutely embarrassed the luxury car competition in the United States in the second quarter, as explained and visualized in a CleanTechnica report last night. More broadly, the following report looks at overall luxury car sales and overall luxury auto sales in the US last quarter.
Naturally, Tesla does better when just comparing car sales since that’s the category in which it has a high-volume, mass-market model (the Model 3). Other automakers sell a lot of crossovers and SUVs, whereas Tesla has no crossovers on the market (yet) and only the high-priced Model X SUV.
Looking at the luxury car ranking, Tesla took the title in the second quarter, on the shoulders of the Model 3’s unprecedented domination of its class.
My estimates for Tesla’s sales are based on Tesla’s official quarterly deliveries and vehicle registration reports in Europe and China. While they are not official figures, our previous estimates have been very close to Tesla’s numbers. Since there’s an ~11,000 vehicle gap between #1 Tesla and #2 BMW, there’s approximately a 100% chance this ranking is accurate.
The overall auto sales ranking is much tighter and Tesla does not come out on top in this one.
Here’s where BMW gets to hold onto its title as the top selling luxury automaker in the United States. Mercedes-Benz is close behind, and then Lexus close behind it. At last, a significant step down of nearly 10,000 vehicles, Tesla comes in 4th. One has to wonder where Tesla will be once the Model Y crossover is on the market, once word of mouth spreads further (beyond California), and if the company does get “Full Self Driving” finalized and approved by at least one state (ahem, Florida, ahem).
In the meantime, looking at the tables below, you can see that Tesla held ~25% of the US luxury car market in the second quarter and ~11% of the luxury auto market. (These market share figures may be slightly inflated since Jaguar doesn’t report detailed quarterly sales figures and is thus not included in this report.)
| Luxury Car Brand | Q2 2019 Sales | Segment Share |
| Acura Cars | 10,322 | 5% |
| Audi Cars | 21,938 | 10% |
| BMW Cars | 42,781 | 20% |
| Buick Cars | 6,784 | 3% |
| Cadillac Cars | 10,035 | 5% |
| Infiniti Cars | 7,902 | 4% |
| Lexus Cars | 20,630 | 10% |
| Lincoln Cars | 6,164 | 3% |
| Mercedes-Benz Cars | 35,123 | 16% |
| Volvo Cars | 9,345 | 4% |
| Tesla Cars (est.) | 53,608 | 25% |
| TOTAL | 214,310 | 100% |
| Brand | Q2 2019 Sales | Market Share |
| Acura | 37,382 | 7% |
| Audi | 53,325 | 10% |
| BMW | 82,552 | 16% |
| Buick | 55,373 | 11% |
| Cadillac | 39,739 | 8% |
| Infiniti | 28,743 | 6% |
| Lexus | 68,944 | 13% |
| Lincoln | 25,940 | 5% |
| Mercedes-Benz | 76,225 | 15% |
| Volvo | 28,062 | 5% |
| Tesla (est.) | 59,280 | 11% |
| TOTAL | 518,183 | 100% |
As I’ve said and written many times before, it’s shocking but not surprising that Tesla is already performing so well. It’s shocking because of how young the company is, and because so much negative misinformation is put out their about Tesla and its vehicles, but it’s not surprising because the Model 3 offers better performance, better infotainment and autonomous driving tech, greater safety, and a much lower total cost of ownership than competing luxury cars. I think most of the non-Tesla luxury car buyers simply haven’t experienced or even learned about Tesla vehicles. The good thing is: that means there’s still a big, wide market for Tesla to tap.
If you are interested in buying a Tesla Model 3 (or Model S or X) and need a referral code to get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging, feel free to use ours: http://ts.la/tomasz7234
Photos by Kyle Field and Zach Shahan for CleanTechnica
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