Tesla has won the U.S. luxury sales crown for 2022, beating BMW, according to estimates from the Automotive News Research & Data Center.
Elon Musk’s Tesla beat German automaker BMW for the crown, with an estimated 491,000 sales in the U.S., based on estimates. BMW was in second place with 332,388, followed by Mercedes-Benz with 286,764 in sales for third place.
Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, said to Automotive News, “Not only do luxury buyers want EVs, but the one that only sells EV is now the sales leader.”
“If you want to be at the top of the luxury segment, you’ve got to beat Tesla, and you’ve got to do it with EVs,” said Jominy.
U.S. luxury auto sales declined in 2022, a year where chip shortages and supply chain constraints were rampant. Tesla appears to have fared better at managing these issues than other automakers.
Non-Tesla startups and traditional automakers saw an 81 percent surge in EV registrations in the first 10 months of 2022. Tesla saw its registrations rise 50% during this same period, according to Experian data.
Back in June, the annual Cars.com American-Made Index for 2022 deemed Tesla’s Model Y as the ‘Most American-made’ car, beating its sibling the Model 3.
Tesla’s Q4 2022 saw a record 439,701 cars produced and 405,278 vehicles delivered. For the full year, the electric vehicle (EV) pioneer reported production and deliveries of 1,369,611 and 1,313,851 million vehicles, respectively. Production grew 47% year-over-year from 2021, while deliveries surged 40%.
