Electric car specialists Tesla are edging ever closer to BMW to become the number-one luxury-car seller in the US, despite potential roadblocks like the driver of a Tesla in autopilot mode which ran a red light and killed two people recently being charged with vehicular manslaughter.
Regardless of the recall of 285,000 vehicles last year due to safety issues with the cruise-control system, Tesla already overtook Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus in the first 11 months of 2021, according to US registration data at the end of November.
They now look set to take the sales checkered flag in front of BMW in the US for December when the dust has settled.
As Tesla doesn’t actually supply sales data, the result is still a few weeks away due to waiting for registration data to come through, but if they do beat BMW for 2021 it says a lot about the bright future of the electric car market.
As a leading US analyst says of 2021 luxury car sales in the US, “The numbers are too close to call at this moment, but it looks like there could be an upset.
“Even if Tesla doesn’t take top spot, it is remarkable that they have risen to the top in a short period of time, considering collapse seemed entirely possible a few years ago.”
Based on estimates on the number of vehicles shipped to Australia, Tesla is expected to have had a record year here as well.
