Tesla takes lead position in race to become top luxury car brand in US

While EV giant Tesla narrowly missed out on becoming the leading luxury car brand in the US in 2021, letting BMW to take the top spot, figures this year suggest the EV company is moving in the direction of victory this year. As per data from Experian, Tesla’s January sales registrations rose by an 49 per cent as compared to the same time last year to a total of 37,162 vehicles, Carscoops reported.

This figure is pitted against an 8.2 percent rise to 30,563 units for BMW. When comparing Tesla’s performance to BMW in January, it is impressive because Tesla sells only fully electric vehicles while BMW’s tally also includes combustion-engine vehicles and hybrids.

While in 2021, BMW registered a total of 347,453 vehicles as compared with 342,412 for Tesla. The later's registrations hiked by 71 percent that year versus 2020, but BMW’s only grew by 24 percent. If that's not all, Tesla has several other advantages in its favor that could help it gain victory in 2022. These include a new Texas plant and its plans to expand output at its Fremont factory as high as 600,000 units.

Data released by Experian further reveals that Lexus' registrations fell 6 per cent to 24,843 in January, whereas Mercedes saw its numbers fall 20 percent to just 22,022. However, the news that Tesla has already taken an early lead for 2022 isn't very surprising.

Other facts from Experian’s data revealed that there has been a 62 per cent rise in EV registrations in January. Electric cars accounted for 50,384 new vehicles, taking 4.3 percent of the market, and of those, 18,549 were the Tesla Model Y, which is currently a favorite in the US. The Tesla Model 3 with 13,604 units and Model S with 3,903 units took second and third spots, while at the fourth-place Mustang Mach-E found only 2,781 buyers.