The Tesla Model 3 continued to hog the throne on top of the US premium-class car market at the end of 2019. For the full year, the Model 3 accounted for 23% of small and midsize luxury car sales. In other words, nearly 1 out of every 4 small or midsize luxury cars sold in 2019 was a Tesla Model 3.
The Tesla Model 3 continues to dominate the US premium-class car market. In fact, it has dominated this market to such an extent that it has more sales in 2019 than all of BMW’s small & midsize models combined, all of Mercedes-Benz’s small & midsized models combined, all of Audi’s small & midsized models combined, all of Lexus’s small & midsized models combined, etc.
I recently ran a Twitter poll to decide what to write about next. The top article the voters asked me to write was an article on how the Tesla Model Standard Range (SR) competes against models from incumbent auto manufacturers. The wonderful thing is that Tesla is now price competitive, without incentives. It is very competitive on a total cost of ownership basis. With incentives and TCO factored in, the Model 3 is tough to beat.
Let’s take a look.
This may have been the longest I’ve ever taken to create a monthly US sales report, and it may have also been the most difficult. We had a strong sense of how Tesla Model 3 production and deliveries were ramping up through the 3rd quarter, but due to the intense push to get Model 3s out the door and into customers’ hands by the end of the quarter, it has been hard to estimate output in subsequent weeks — much of October.
Tesla Model 3 sales growth this year has been astounding, putting to bed any sensible skepticism about Tesla’s ability to produce a high number of high-quality cars that consumers adore.
Tesla increased its deliveries by more than 100% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, its previous best quarter in history. In 6 years, its Q3 sales jumped from 321 to 83,500.
Its sales come at the expense of cars all over the map. However, the classes it is most directly competing in are the relevant luxury classes.
