The Tesla Model 3 continues to dominate in its vehicle class in the United States. Frankly, sales charts for the second quarter of 2019 make it look like the Model 3 doesn’t belong in this class at all, and there’s a strong case to be made that it doesn’t.
The Model 3 has a similar base price point to the other vehicles on the charts featured below, but it has much lower cost of ownership, much better tech (infotainment tech and autonomous driving tech), record-breaking safety scores, and unmatched performance. There’s really not a solid reason to buy another car in this class. Aside from some buyers not liking the design of the Model 3 for some reason and choosing a competing car, I presume that sales of other models in this price range are simply due to inertia — societal inertia, marketing inertia, and internal illogical inertia. Actually, even a distaste for the design may simply be due to psychological inertia.
Nonetheless, the story today is not that there should be more Model 3 demand. It’s that the Model 3 was sold more than 3 times more than the runner-up BMW 3 Series, or a bit less than 3 times more than the BMW 3/4 Series. No class in this category comes close to matching the Model 3.
The sales chart above is so warped that I thought it’s more sensible to combine small and midsize models of other luxury automakers and pit them against the Model 3. This also makes some sense if you consider that Tesla doesn’t have many models for sale. Choice is so limited that someone who may want a Model 3 in a coupe design or something more like a “Model 2” simply has to settle for a Model 3 right now.
So, I created another chart that combines the semi-similar models of competing brands, cars in the small and midsize luxury car categories. Have a look:
The Model 3 wins anyway!
Again, in my mind, it’s not surprising that the Model 3 is winning — it’s surprising that anyone is buying the other cars at all. Nonetheless, it is a big achievement to yet again top the sales chart like this, and it must come as a total shocker to analysts who don’t understand the Tesla Model 3’s various competitive advantages over the competition — dramatic competitive advantages.
Indeed, much of the media hasn’t touched this topic and is never going to report that the Model 3 absolutely dominated the rankings in and near its vehicle class. That’s why you have CleanTechnica.
Note: I discovered that the interactive charts I normally use for these reports can appear messed up on some smartphones, so I used static images instead of the interactive charts in the article above. However, if you want to have some real fun, check out the charts below and click from one time period to the next to see how Tesla Model 3 sales (deliveries) have evolved over time.
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
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