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by elbelcho 2449 days ago
Note that all the Tesla sales numbers in the article are estimates by the author of the article. There are no sources cited in the article. Other articles on this site from this same author are very clearly biased in favor of Tesla and electric cards in general. I would take this article with a grain of salt to say the least.

FTA: "Tesla reports quarterly sales and does not break them out by country or region. Eventually, we get registration data from Europe, China (educated estimates at least), and Canada and can then make a more solid estimate of US sales for the quarter, as well as monthly sales estimates. However, it’s a bit early for all of that since we don’t have September numbers from most countries yet. Even our data-loving friend and contributor Jose Pontes of EV Volumes didn’t want to venture out too far on a limb and provide an early estimate that he might have to walk back. That said, looking at previous months’ data, September figures from the Netherlands and Norway, and deeper historical data, I feel comfortable estimating Model 3 sales between 40,000 and 50,000 in the US in the third quarter. For this report, I’ve settled on 43,000."

3 comments

For those truly wanting to do the due diligence, GoodCarBadCar does maintain a ton of sales data -- even down to by model, by month -- for the US and Canada

http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/us-vehicle-sales-figures-by-mod...

That is depressing... top three by a wide margin are pick up trucks.
Hard to read this as anything other than a sales pitch:

> While a 24% market share — 1 out of every 4 sales in this market — seems wild, the thing that blows the minds of many Tesla Model 3 owners is that anyone is still buying an Audi A4, Volvo S60, BMW 320i, Mercedes C300, etc.

Grain of salt indeed. I thought it was funny how the author decides to "settle" on some arbitary 2-sig-fig number.

It's worth noting that in the US, the SUV/crossover is king of sales.

As a quick basis of comparison, Acura TLX sales for the entirety of Q3 was 5,754 units (verified this figure), whereas Acura MDX sales for the month of August alone[1] was 5,976 units.

Now play this comparison game with Lexus[2][3][4], Cadillac[5], BMW[6][7][8], etc. and you'll discover similar patterns.

How meaningful is it to compare Tesla Model 3 estimated US sales figures to a relatively small market segment that has literally been and continues to be cannibalized by SUV/crossover conversions year over year? IMHO, it's like focusing on salt in the bleeding wound while turning a blind eye to the frenzy of sharks encircling.

[1] https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release...

[2] https://pressroom.lexus.com/toyota-motor-north-america-repor...

[3] https://pressroom.lexus.com/toyota-motor-north-america-repor...

[4] https://pressroom.lexus.com/toyota-motor-north-america-repor...

[5] https://media.gm.com/dld/content/Pages/news/us/en/2019/oct/1...

[6] http://bmwmedia.iconicweb.com/mediasite/attachments/190801_J...

[7] http://bmwmedia.iconicweb.com/mediasite/attachments/August_2...

[8] http://bmwmedia.iconicweb.com/mediasite/attachments/191001_S...