Cold shower for the German automaker: In September, more Tesla Model 3s were registered than the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Mercedes C-Class combined.
Flensburg - Tesla currently has every reason to celebrate.
The plant under construction in Grünheide was opened to interested visitors for an open day.
Elon Musk announced that it would be producing the first electric cars for Europe in Germany by December at the latest.
There is also good news in terms of sales.
In September, for example, Tesla narrowly missed the title of the model with the most registrations in Germany with its Model 3 with 6828 registrations.
The Volkswagen Golf was a wafer-thin lead with 6886 registrations.
Tesla overtakes BMW, Mercedes and Audi: Model 3 leaves combustion engine competition far behind
It is equally important that Tesla has overtaken the German premium competition.
The
Business Week
reported that the US company has sold 3 segment more vehicles in September in the model as BMW, Mercedes and Audi together.
The magazine relies on data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority.
Accordingly, BMW sold around 3,000 vehicles of its 3-series combustion models in September, which are comparable to the Model 3.
Mercedes had almost 2,200 new registrations for its C-Class and the similarly sized CLA.
Audi only sold around 900 copies of the A4, S4, RS4, A5, S5 and RS5 models.
That makes a total of around 6,100 new registrations.
Tesla overtakes BMW, Mercedes and Audi: electric cars record high growth
According to
WirtschaftsWoche
, the current weakness of German car manufacturers is partly due to the lack of chips.
The figures are therefore not representative for the current year.
In the first nine months, 23,000 models were sold in Germany.
Audi, BMW and Mercedes would each have higher numbers with their competing models with combustion engines.
A general shift towards electric cars also plays a role.
Compared to the same month last year, 41 percent fewer gasoline and 54 percent fewer diesel cars were sold in September.
In contrast, there was an increase of eleven percent for hybrids, 14 percent for plug-in hybrids and as much as 59 percent for purely electric cars.