For the first time Tesla leads all sales figures for electric cars. Tesla achieves its breakthrough in 2018. In the USA, Tesla sold more cars in the fourth quarter of 2018 than in the whole of 2017. But Tesla is not only leading the US market for electric cars. In the US, Tesla also leads in the “luxury cars” category. This means that in this category BMW, Mercedes and Audi, for example, are even subject to sales figures with petrol and diesel engines. Tesla even leads in the sales figures, according to turnover, the category of limousines in the USA. So for all limousines no matter of which manufacturer or type of drive.

Decisive for this success is the now ongoing production and delivery of the Tesla Model 3. But also the models X and S continue to sell well. The just introduced Tesla Model Y will bring another boost in 2020, so that one can assume that Tesla will lead the market for a long time.

Tesla moves against the upward trend

Contrary to the development at other manufacturers, who have declining sales figures or even leave the US market, Tesla’s sales figures continue to rise. This is remarkable and has not been predicted by many analysts. Even the highly regarded big Wall Street analysts didn’t see it that way. In a comparison of 4th quarter 2018 with 2017, Tesla gained 367%. Tesla Model 3 even gained 3,808 %.

Tesla also leads sales figures in Germany

In February 2019, 959 Tesla were approved in Germany. Then followed by the ZOE from Renault and the i3 from BMW. Since Tesla was only able to deliver the Model 3 to Germany in February, this number is expected to increase in the coming months.

1,000 registrations in Norway in one week. Top-selling electric car in the Netherlands! Number one in Canada!

In Norway, more than 1,000 Tesla Model 3 were already registered in the first week of March 2019. In the whole month of March already 1,765 and in total since the introduction of the Model 3 2,337 vehicles. In comparison, only 314 e-Golf or 285 Nissan Leaf were registered there. In the Netherlands, Model 3 clearly led the delivery figures for electric cars with 472 units in February. In Canada, Tesla sold 13,000 units in the last quarter and also leads the market there.

3,000 units delivered to China

After production of the Tesla Model 3 started in the USA in the autumn, the first 3,000 Model 3 were delivered to China. Currently about 8,000 Model 3 are produced daily in Nevada. Tesla is currently building its own plant in China. Together with the increasing production figures in the USA, Tesla will probably lead the market in China later this year.

The prospects for Tesla are very bright

Since the production of the Tesla Model 3 has started with acceptable volumes, much higher sales figures can be expected in the future. The Tesla Model Y has just been introduced. Should its sales figures also skyrocket, which is to be expected, Tesla will lead the market in the most important sales areas for electric cars a long time.

Although other models are gaining ground, they are experiencing considerable delivery difficulties. The model EQC from Mercedes is supposed to be sold out for the next 12 months. The same applies to Audi’s e-Tron. You have to wait at least six months for an e-Golf and even for the racers like the Renault ZOE or the BMW i3 you have to be patient for three months. If the sales figures continue to rise, you will have to reckon with longer waiting times. Since all manufacturers, except Tesla, do not have large capacities.

Since Tesla has its own battery production, the company can determine the scaling itself. The bottleneck for the other manufacturers is the supply by producers of batteries. And this situation is getting narrower with increasing quantities. Tesla has a clear strategic advantage here. But not only with batteries.

Tesla’s charging network is now considered to be very well developed and one of the fastest due to high charging power. A buyer will always consider the overall concept with which he decides on a new purchase. Tesla simply is a step ahead. Recently Tesla even announced that the new version of the Supercharger allows charging with up to 250 kW, which considerably shortens the charging time. In addition, the Tesla Model 3 and later also the Model Y are additionally supplied with the CSS plug, which is widely used in Europe, and which can also be used to charge on many other charging stations not owned by Tesla.

The Tesla Model 3, for about 35’000 Dollar or Euro, is now also sold in the USA and Canada. In Europe it should be available until autumn 2019. This will give Tesla another boost in sales. Once this cheaper version has gained momentum, it will also speed up deliveries to other countries. The only manufacturers of electric cars that are similarly agile in the market are and will be the Chinese. In China alone in January 2019, i.e. in one month, around 96,000 electric cars were sold. At the end of 2019, it is planned to sell around 250,000 electric cars per month in China alone. This does not even include worldwide sales. In addition one must know that China holds the complete production of batteries and the supply of the raw materials for it in hands.

Sources: Tesla, electrive.net, cleantechnica.com, elbilstatistikk.no, insideevs.com