Fast-rising Tesla passes BMW in registrations

After narrowly missing out on overtaking luxury leader BMW in new-vehicle registrations for 2021, Tesla began this year in the segment's No. 1 spot, according to data from Experian.

The January pull-ahead may reflect what's to come this calendar year since Tesla is on the verge of unleashing significant new U.S. production capacity in the weeks ahead.

Tesla was already on a sharp trajectory to overtake BMW late last year. The electric vehicle maker's January registrations rose 49 percent from a year earlier to 37,162, Experian reported, while BMW registrations rose 8.2 percent to 30,563.

Lexus saw a 5.5 percent decrease in registrations to 24,843 for January, and Mercedes-Benz suffered a 20 percent drop to 22,022 vehicles.

The registration totals include all models from the luxury automakers, including gasoline-powered vehicles, hybrids and full-electrics.

BMW barely won the luxury-vehicle registration race for 2021 at 347,453, compared with 342,412 for Tesla, Experian reported last month. But that data also showed Tesla growing with greater momentum, with a 71 percent sales gain last year compared with BMW's 24 percent growth.

Tesla has some advantages this year, analysts say, including the opening of its Texas plant, which should help it fill back orders for its most popular models. Likewise, Tesla has said it's boosting output at its original plant in Fremont, Calif., to as many as 600,000 vehicles this year.

Registration data is different from sales data, since a vehicle can be sold in one month and registered in another. When exact registration numbers are unavailable, data providers make their best estimate.

For example, Lexus reported sales of 20,620 vehicles in January compared with Lexus registrations of 24,843 vehicles, according to Experian's data. And last year, BMW's official sales volume came in at 336,644 vehicles, slightly lower than Experian's registration figure of 347,453.

But because Tesla does not break out its monthly U.S. sales — it instead reports only global data on a quarterly basis — its monthly U.S. registration data serves as a proxy for comparison.

Tesla's official sales numbers from last year showed an 87 percent increase globally to 936,172 vehicles.

The company expects an increase this year of at least 50 percent — which would put deliveries above 1.4 million.

Tesla also has a new factory coming online in Berlin this year to support that forecast.

According to Experian data from January, the Tesla Model Y was the top EV in the U.S., at 18,549 registrations, followed by the Tesla Model 3 with 13,604 and the Tesla Model S with 3,903.

In fourth place was the Ford Mustang Mach-E with 2,781 registrations, followed by the Nissan Leaf at 1,479 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 at 1,253.

Volkswagen's ID4 was No. 7 with 1,153 registrations, followed by the Kia Niro electric at 1,146, the Tesla Model X with 1,106 and the Porsche Taycan rounding out the top 10 with 972 registrations.

Experian said total U.S. EV registrations rose by 62 percent in January to 50,384 vs. 31,174 a year earlier.

That pushed EV share of the U.S. light-vehicle market to 4.3 percent in January, compared with 2.3 percent a year earlier.