By Oyintari Ben
In 2022, Tesla accomplished what it was unable to in 2021. It has surpassed BMW to win the top spot among luxury automakers in the US. The final results weren’t even close, making this the first time a US carmaker has held this distinction in almost 25 years.
Tesla sold 23,244 fewer cars than BMW in the US in 2021, but in 2022 Tesla entirely turned the tables. Tesla is believed to have sold more than 491,000 vehicles in the US last year, more than 56% more than they were able to sell in 2021, according to projections from the Automotive News Research & Data Centre. In comparison, BMW sold 332,388 vehicles in the US over the same time period, a decrease of 1.3% from 2022. This is a staggering 158,612 more than BMW.
The achievement is made even more astounding by the fact that Tesla grew sales by 56% while total sales in the US luxury market fell by 8%.
Mercedes-Benz comes in third with 286,764 sales behind BMW, followed by Lexus (258,704), Audi (186,875), Cadillac (134,726), Acura (102,306), and Volvo (VOLVO) (102,038).
According to registration data from Experian, Tesla has already been able to secure two-thirds of the EV market share in the US thanks to the successful year. Tesla’s market share is more than the combined market share of the rest of the industry, which gives you an indication of how much of a commanding lead that is.
The next question is who will dethrone Tesla as the leading luxury brand in the US and when. Currently, Tesla has the title. It appears that it will take a while for BMW, or anybody else, to once again get close to Tesla’s numbers given that they are more than 158,000 cars away.
