Tesla Inc. has jumped to an early lead in the U.S. luxury market, overtaking segment leader BMW in new vehicle registrations for January, according to data from Experian.
Tesla narrowly lost to BMW last year in vehicle registrations.
But Tesla's January registrations rose 49 percent from a year earlier to 37,162 vehicles, Experian reported this week. BMW registrations rose 8.2 percent to 30,563.
Lexus saw a 5.5 percent decrease in registrations to 24,843 in January, Experian said, and Mercedes-Benz suffered a 20 percent drop to 22,022.
The registration data includes all models from the luxury automakers, including gasoline-powered vehicles, hybrids and full-electrics.