Tesla Extends U.S. Luxury Sales Crown, Model Y Leads EV Registrations

Tesla’s U.S. registrations rose 66 percent in the first five months of the year, for a total of 179,574 vehicles delivered, according to data shared by Experian and reported by Automotive News.

The news puts Tesla at the front of the luxury sector in the U.S., largely due to increased production at its Fremont factory, with BMW following in second with an 11 percent drop in registrations and a total of 133,209 vehicles registered.

Lexus took third place in luxury vehicle registrations during the five-month period with 112,296 registrations, an overall decline of 19 percent from last year.

Mercedes-Benz landed the fourth-place spot, with a total of 110,584 registrations marking a  17-percent decrease.

The U.S. luxury data also includes gas and hybrid models from traditional automakers, showing the growing EV industry within the larger luxury auto field.

Elon Musk’s company also led U.S. EV registrations in the past five months, according to Experian. The Model Y was number one at 82,880 registrations, followed by the Model 3 at 74,092.

In third place was Ford’s Mustang Mach-E at 15,491 registrations, with the Model S at fourth with 13,008. Next was the Hyundai IONIQ 5 at 10,776, followed by the Model X in sixth with 9,594, then the Kia EV6 at 9,508.

South Korean’s Hyundai, Kia and Genesis are surging as they came in second behind Tesla, with 27,746 registrations for its trio of brands in the five-month period.

As for Ford, it had 423 F-150 Lightning registrations and 1,495 of its E-Transit 350 commercial van.

GM’s Chevrolet had 3,645 registrations of its Bolt EV and EUV, while GMC had 225 Hummer registrations. Cadillac saw 40 registrations of its Lyric EV crossover.

Volkswagen saw 3,964 registrations of its ID.4 crossover. Toyota entered the EV chart with 181 registrations in May.

Tesla doesn’t report it sales data as separated by region, making new vehicle registrations a proxy for comparing data — though official U.S. sales data is posted by other automakers on a monthly or quarterly basis, and Tesla’s numbers lag behind this data.

A study in June showed that Tesla’s luxury brand loyalty had surpassed that of other automakers.