Tesla’s Model Y was Europe's best-selling premium midsize SUV in the first half of 2022, beating German rivals including the segment's former leader, the Mercedes-Benz GLC, according to a report in Automotive News Europe.
The sales growth of the Model Y, which is supplied both by Tesla's new plant near Berlin and its facility in Shanghai, has been so strong that it could potentially surpass the Audi A3 to become Europe's best-selling premium model outright, preliminary half-year figures from Dataforce show.
“The Tesla Model Y has been very successful in the European market and it's set to grow further,” Dataforce’s senior automotive analyst Benjamin Kibies said.
The Model Y recorded 41,851 sales in the first six months, beating the GLC (40,554), according to Dataforce's preliminary pan-Europe numbers, which exclude figures from Finland and Portugal.
This signals that the electric SUV has been rising up the sales rankings since its gradual rollout across Europe started last year. The Model Y was Norway's top-seller in the first six months while in June it topped Sweden's sales charts and finished No. 2 overall in the UK.
Tesla's entry has helped push total sales in the premium midsize SUV segment above 250,000 for the half, which is a rise of 18% on the same period last year.
The success of the Model Y has had another important impact on the segment – in the first half diesel tied with electric in terms of market share, with each standing at 32%, signalling that diesel is no longer the dominant fuel.
Gasoline models accounted for 15% of sales in the segment, led by the Porsche Macan, which could indicate that the brand's lack of a plug-in hybrid variant is hampering its volume.
To become Europe's best-selling premium car in 2022, the Model Y has to beat the Audi A3, which led the compact premium segment with first-half sales of 51,994, as well as the BMW X1, Mercedes A-Class, BMW 3 Series, and Mini hatchback.
But Tesla's ability to increase sales of the Model Y in the second half will depend as much on its industrial capacity as on customer demand.
The company is slowly boosting capacity for Model Y at its new Gruenheide factory in Berlin, and CEO Elon Musk has promised in July's earning call to raise the plant's weekly output from 1,000 in June to 5,000 vehicles “by the end of this year or early next year.”
According to another report from Automotive News Europe’s sister publication Automobilwoche, Tesla has also claimed that it wants to produce 500,000 cars annually in Gruenheide.
Tesla's single model available with just two specifications is so far beating the segment strategy of its premium rivals that offer different body styles and up to four different drivetrains. An outright win for Tesla in the segment for the year would no doubt cause rivals to question whether they need such complex and varied portfolios, notes Automotive News Europe.