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 US auto industry took a bit of a whack in 2019. Excluding Tesla, auto sales were down by 177,839 units in 2019 compared to 2018. That said, only 13 auto brands saw their sales drop, while 18 saw their sales rise.
Tracking monthly US auto sales by company or brand is one of the oddest-feeling things I’ve done in my decade or so covering cleantech. Perhaps that’s because the focus is on tracking non-clean tech. The fact is, though, it shocks me every month to see how many people still buy gasoline cars. Gasoline cars are far worse than electric cars currently on the market for the same cost (or even less). Nonetheless, there are so many people buying clunky, noisy, slow, high-maintenance, low-tech, high-depreciation gasoline vehicles every single day. Objectively, it doesn’t make sense.
Tracking monthly US auto sales has been a fascinating endeavor this past year. Unfortunately, we don’t get data from some brands — Tesla, all Ford Motor Company brands, GM brands, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles brands, Jaguar Land Rover no longer report monthly sales. However, there are 17 brands that do report monthly US sales, so let’s have a look at them.
Overall, non-Tesla US passenger vehicle sales were up by 14,910 units in the 3rd quarter of 2019 compared to the 3rd quarter of 2018, and 14 brands saw their sales increase while 13 saw their sales decrease.
Honda and Toyota have been smart, logical choices for American car buyers for decades. Once upon a time, they were the new kids on the block and they had to prove themselves with strong “performance for the money” or “value for the money” propositions. They did so, repeatedly, and they grew their market shares as a result.
I may need to cancel my fun, popular, and extremely time consuming monthly reports for US auto sales. One by one, US automakers have stopped publishing monthly sales data. At this point, there are almost as many brands not reporting sales as there are reporting them.
In the comments of my article about the Tesla Model 3 accounting for 67% of US electric vehicle sales in the second quarter, someone asked about the electric vehicle share of the overall market. I didn’t find second quarter (Q2) sales data anywhere, but I did quickly identify sales data for the first half of the year.
We primarily cover the electric vehicle market here on CleanTechnica. However, context is important and that means sometimes looking at the broader automobile market. Therefore, I collect US auto sales data from almost all automakers on a monthly basis and take a look at their sales trends. I also split out car/sedan sales data for these automakers since the dominant, mass-market electric vehicle currently on the market is a car (the Tesla Model 3).
The US is heading for a down year in auto sales. The only bright spot is Tesla. So why is everyone bashing the one company that is succeeding at building US-made cars with American workers?
