Tesla has started the year off with a bang, dominating the US auto market with nearly 50,000 new registrations in January 2023. According to Experian data, this is a massive lead over second-place BMW, which had around 31,000 registrations.
While some may argue that Tesla is not a luxury automaker due to its less fancy car designs compared to BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus, the US EV maker has long been considered a luxury brand due to its cutting-edge technology and high price points. Even with substantial price cuts on its EVs, Tesla’s prices are still comparable to luxury counterparts.
Typically, Tesla focuses on increasing sales at the end of each quarter, with the biggest push at the end of the year. However, opening the year with some of the largest price reductions the brand has ever offered, on top of the availability of the newly revamped $7,500 US federal EV tax credit, led to historic figures for the world’s most well-known EV producer.
According to Automotive News, Tesla saw 49,917 new registrations in January 2023, while BMW had 31,070, followed by Mercedes’ 23,345 and Lexus’ 23,082. In other words, Tesla sold 19,000 more vehicles in January than BMW and more than doubled Mercedes’ and Lexus’ new registrations for the month.
It’s important to note that these numbers represent all new cars registered for the month, regardless of powertrain. If we were to look at Tesla’s EV sales compared to rival luxury brands, the discrepancy would be much more significant.
Tesla’s sales were up 34% compared to January 2022, while BMW was up just 2.5%. Mercedes increased its sales year over year by 7.3%, and Lexus saw a 6.6% drop.
The Model Y SUV was Tesla’s best-selling vehicle for the period, selling nearly 29,000 units, which marks a 56% increase year over year. Model 3 registrations were up 29%, to 17,526 units sold during the same time period.
Experian’s data also shows that the overall EV market increased by 74% in January 2023, with 87,708 registrations in total. Since nearly 50,000 of the EVs sold were produced by Tesla, this shows that nearly 39,000 non-Tesla EVs entered the market during the same month.
While this is encouraging, it is important to note that it took every luxury and mainstream automaker combined to sell fewer EVs in one month than Tesla did alone. Tesla’s impressive start to the year sets a high bar for the rest of the auto industry and shows that the demand for electric vehicles is rapidly increasing.
