This thread went dormant some time ago, so I thought it would be interesting to have a follow-up to see whether Model S continue pillaging through the premium/luxury large sedan segment of US automotive market in 2016 after it did the same in 2015.
Yes, it does.
The results during the first nine month of 2016 might surprise a few skeptics:
- Model S accelerated it's sales growth: sales during first 9 month of 2016 grew 58.26% as compared to the same period last year, vs 51.01% YoY in 2015
- Sales of all competitors shrunk in first 9 month of 2016, with the exception of BMW Series 7, which enjoyed sales growth, but apparently at the expense of BMW Series 6. Combined growth of Series 6 and 7 was negative.
- Model S gained a whopping additional 10% of market share, improving on stellar performance in 2015 when it commanded huge 25% of the segment.
- All competitors seem to be helpless to stop Model S for the second year in a row. This might explain a slew of EV announcements on from the world's best automobile companies.
- Tesla is poised to repeat this success in the compact premium/luxury segment with Model 3. This starts to look downright ominous to the European competitors. Developing new EVs to compete with Tesla will require substantial resources, while their income from the sales of traditional ICE vehicles takes huge hit due to Tesla's rapid market share advances
The data are from the Tesla Q4 2015 shareholder's letter,
GOOD CAR BAD CAR (2014, 2015, 9 months 2015, 9 months 2016 sales for all manufacturers except Tesla),
Monthly Plug-In Sales Scorecard (2015 9 months and 2016 9 months deliveries for Model S)
View attachment 197444
Wow...
If we assume the growth rates end up being the same for the whole year, it could look something like this for the whole year
39,885 Tesla Model S
6,432 Audi A7
4,362 Audi A8
4,089 BMW 6 series
13,492 BMW 7 series
3,448 Jaguar XJ
5,592 Lexus LS
4,566 MB CLS-Class
18,396 MB S-Class
4,287 Porsche Panamera
104,549 Total
It also seems Tesla has now likely overtaken Mercedes as a whole... Using these numbers above, breakdown by manufacturer:
2014-- 2015-- 2016(est based on 9mo)
16,689 25,202 39,885 Tesla
14,037 12,711 10,794 Audi
18,391 17,438 17,581 BMW
32,257 28,086 22,962 Mercedes-Benz
8,559 7,165 5,592 Lexus LS
4,329 3,611 3,448 Jaguar
5,740 4,985 4,287 Porsche
Now, lets break it down by country:
2014-- 2015-- 2016
70,425 63,220 55,624 Germany
16,689 25,202 39,885 USA
8,559 7,165 5,592 Japan
4,329 3,611 3,448 UK
If I'm an executive of one of the German luxury brands I'm probably not sleeping very well... These are very high margin car sales that are getting lost. I guess the real question is by 2018 will Tesla overtake all of the German OEMs combined?