Another quarter has wrapped up and we have more grand trends in the US auto industry. In the charts and text below, I’m comparing Q2 2021 (the second quarter of 2021) with Q2 2020 and also with Q2 2019. Naturally, year-over-year changes are interesting, but given how unique last year was, I think it’s more useful and interesting to compare 2021 to 2019 (though, still imperfect since there may still be an auto industry sales bounce as we recover from 2020).
The biggest highlights for me as it concerns the electric vehicle industry is that Tesla’s US sales (estimated based on Tesla’s official global figures and various factors and data sources) increased 51% from Q2 2019 to Q2 2021 — more than any other company’s sales — and it was 5th in the industry in terms of volume increase (behind Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia — in that order).
Comparing last year’s second quarter to this years, Tesla was again first in terms of percentage increase in sales (this time a whopping 157%), but dropped to 9th in terms of volume increase.
Other trends in the industry that you can see include:
- About half of the industry saw improvements from Q2 2019 to Q2 2021, and about half had sales decline.
- In net, the industry was down by 1%, or 63,724 sales.
- The brands that saw their sales increase the most on a volume basis were Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Tesla, and Volkswagen — in that order.
- The brands that saw their sales increase the most on a percentage growth basis were Tesla (51%), Acura (35%), Kia (30%), Volvo (30%), Hyundai (29%), Audi (26%), Porsche (24%), Volkswagen (22%), and Lexus (21%).
- Compared to Q2 2020, though, almost every brand saw its sales increase, with only Fiat still declining (by 33%, or 448 sales).
- In net, the industry was up in Q2 2020 by 49%, or 1,413,857 sales — the vast majority of which were sales of gasoline-powered cars, trucks, and SUVs, unfortunately.
Are there any other key takeaways from these numbers and charts? Let us know down in the comments!
See 1st quarter results here: USA Q1 2021 Auto Sales Up 13% Vs. Q1 2020, But Down 1% Vs. Q1 2019.
See 2020 results here: US Auto Sales Down 2,484,375 (15%) In 2020, Tesla Up 9%.
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