Tesla leapfrogged Audi in 2020 U.S. luxury-car registrations

Byron Hurd



Tesla moved ahead of Audi in the U.S. luxury car segment in 2020, claiming the No. 4 slot with more than 200,000 registrations. Only Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus move more volume in the luxury space, and Tesla has its sights on them next.

While registrations lag official sales figures (and tend to be slightly lower for a given period), the differences are usually negligible. Even in tighter markets (such as luxury cars), registrations usually diverge from official sales tallies by only a few thousand units. Per Automotive News, Tesla clocked in at 200,561 registrations for the calendar year.

For comparison, BMW accounted for a little more than 287,000 registrations, claiming the top slot in the segment. Next up was Lexus, with more than 271,000; Mercedes-Benz finished in third with almost 266,000. Audi, which had been resurgent in the United States for more than a decade, closed the year with just shy of 184,000 registrations.

Tesla has plenty of work ahead if it plans to take the No. 3 slot. It would require a nearly 33% increase in sales to threaten the higher-volume traditional luxury automakers, who are working hard to deliver electric vehicles that can compete with Tesla's range and performance, but can also rely on ICE models to shore up volumes in the meantime. Tesla has no such safety net, but doesn't appear to need one.

Tesla's surge of volume comes thanks to its lower-priced Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, which will continue to enjoy its dominance of the small-crossover electric space at least partially thanks to Mercedes, which has elected not to bring its Model-Y-challenging EQC stateside for the time being.

Related video:

Latest Stories

  • Two dead from carbon monoxide poisoning after using car for heat in Texas storm

    Houston police said the victims were a woman and a girl. Two others, including a boy, were taken to a local hospital for treatment.

  • Biden Calls for Gun Control Legislation on Parkland Shooting Anniversary

    President Biden called on Congress to enact sweeping gun control legislation on Sunday, marking three years since the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. A student murdered 17 people during the 2018 shooting in Parkland, Fla., and police officers who responded to the incident were criticized for failing to enter the school to stop the shooting. The incident also spurred passage of a state law that allows teachers to carry firearms in school. “Today, as we mourn with the Parkland community, we mourn for all who have lost loved ones to gun violence,” Biden said in a statement on Sunday. “We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer.” Biden added, “Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.” Biden in 1994 argued in favor of legislation banning assault weapons that was passed as part of his “crime bill,” the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act. The legislation banned various firearms it classified as “assault weapons,” including semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, as well as magazines able to hold more than ten rounds of ammunition. However, the ban expired in 2004 in accordance with the legislation’s sunset clause. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris clashed on the issue of gun control during the Democratic primaries. Harris pushed to enact gun control measures via executive order, while Biden urged gaining the support of Congress for such legislation.

  • Satellite images show fire devastation on Afghan-Iran border

    Investigators began sifting through the ruins of a massive fire that destroyed hundreds of fuel tankers parked at a major crossing at the Afghanistan-Iran border, the governor of Afghanistan's Herat province said Tuesday. Satellite photos of the Islam Qala customs terminal and surroundings analyzed by The Associated Press show the devastation wreaked by a blaze that began Saturday when a fuel tanker exploded. Satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. obtained by the AP show the burnt shells of hundreds of fuel and natural gas tankers on the Afghan side of the border.

  • Serbia runs ethnic vaccination campaign in Kosovo despite fury from Pristina

    Serbia has launched an unofficial Covid vaccination programme in its former province of Kosovo, creating a political headache in the divided and impoverished Balkan nation. Serbia, which still claims Kosovo as its own, is running Europe's most successful vaccination programme after the UK, relying heavily China's Sinopharm vaccine and Russia's Sputnik V. Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian president, in December announced that his country would vaccinate ethnic Serbs in Kosovo to the fury of Kosovo's leaders. Avdullah Hoti, then Kosovo's prime minister, said the campaign was illegal, and Armend Zemaj, the health minister, ordered an inquiry. Ethnic Serb and Albanian communities in Kosovo are often still highly divided, particularly in the north near the border with Serbia. The outrage from Pristina over the covert vaccination programme prompted Serbia to stop vaccinating Serbs in Kosovar territory. Instead, it has started taking ethnic Serbs across the border to receive the jab, bussing people daily to three vaccination locations in Serbia, some traveling for hundreds of kilometres. The buses leave at around 6am, and about 300 people are vaccinated daily. Meanwhile no one in the rest of Kosovo has been vaccinated yet – not even medical workers on the frontline of the pandemic. The Ministry of Health has announced it will receive a 360,000 strong donation from Covax “in the spring,” and that at risk populations will be prioritised.

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for armed troops to be placed in schools on Parkland anniversary

    The National Guard was in Washington DC in response to the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters

  • Central U.S. is 'the most unusually cold region on the planet' right now

    Record-setting cold weather has paralyzed much of America, bringing freezing temperatures and snow to parts of the country that haven't seen such weather in decades — if ever in modern history. More than 3 million Americans were without power Monday. The vast majority of those power outages — more than 2.6 million — were in Texas, CNN reports, where freezing temperatures and high demand for heat set off rolling outages. Austin, "the city with palm trees and typically mild weather," was covered with six inches of snow, "an amount not seen since 1966," The New York Times reports. Texas' power outages can be attributed to "an electricity grid that is independent from surrounding states, low natural gas supplies, along with sky-high prices and reduced output from the state's numerous wind turbines," The Washington Post explains. In some parts of the country, temperatures were 50 degrees below average, making the central United States "the most unusually cold region on the planet," the Post reports. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bracing for temperatures of -10 Fahrenheit, which would make Monday night the coldest night ever observed. Wind chills hit -40 and -50 in parts of Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. "There is the potential for more than 240 cold temperature records to be broken by Tuesday evening," CNN reports. This is just the first of two major winter storms expected this week. The second is forecast to hit on Wednesday. More stories from theweek.com7 scathingly funny cartoons about Republicans' impeachment cowardiceMillions of Texas households are still without power in a brutally cold winter storm. What went wrong?Tornado kills at least 3 in coastal North Carolina

  • Several feared dead after bus falls into canal

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS IMAGES OF DEATH AND INJURY.The incident took place when the driver of the bus going from Sidhi to Satna lost control.However, local media reports put the toll at 18.Seven people had been rescued and search for rest of the passengers was underway.

  • "Georgia was a fiasco": McConnell indicates he may get involved in Republican primaries

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated in a Wall Street Journal interview Monday that he may become involved in the Republican primaries for the 2022 midterms.Why it matters: McConnell and the GOP will have to balance candidates aligned with former President Trump, who remains popular among Republican voters, and those more likely to win seats in contested states. Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for freeDemocrats regained control of the Senate after winning twin runoffs in Georgia, after Trump made baseless electoral fraud claims and phoned the state's top elections official to ask him to "find" enough votes to change the result."Georgia was a fiasco," is how McConnell summed it up to the WSJ. "We all know why that happened.What else he's saying: McConnell told the Journal that to retake the Senate, Republicans had to get "candidates who can actually win in November.""That may or may not involve trying to affect the outcome of the primaries," he said."I personally don’t care what kind of Republican they are, what kind of lane they consider themselves in. What I care about is electability."Of note: McConnell said he hadn't ruled out the prospect that Trump "may well be supporting good candidates.""I'm not assuming that, to the extent the former president wants to continue to be involved, he won’t be a constructive part of the process," McConnell said.Go deeper: McConnell's two-step portends challenge for Biden and SchumerMore from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free

  • St. Louis agrees to $5 million settlement with Black officer beaten by police at protest

    Luther Hall was undercover at a ’17 protest after the acquittal of a cop charged with killing a Black suspect. The city of St. Louis has agreed to a $5 million settlement with a Black police officer who was beaten by five white officers while working undercover at a protest. Luther Hall was participating in a 2017 protest, working undercover following the acquittal of another St. Louis police officer, Jason Stockley, who had been charged in the 2011 murder of a Black man suspected of selling drugs.

  • First 550,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm's vaccine arrive in Hungary

    The first 550,000 doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Budapest, a leading health official said on Tuesday, as Hungary prepares to become the first EU country to roll out the Chinese vaccine. The shots will be offered for use as soon as the authorities have inspected the shipment, the head of the epidemiology department at the National Public Health Centre, Agnes Galgoczi, said in an online news briefing. The EU has lagged far behind the United States and former EU member Britain in rolling out vaccines.

  • California Realtor Loses Job After Racist Video Harassing Asian Woman Goes Viral

    A real estate agent from the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles was fired recently after a video of him hurling racist comments at an Asian woman surfaced online. What happened: On Wednesday, a social media user who goes by "Em" shared the video in a now-deleted tweet.

  • Democrats Flirt with Destroying Another Senate Guardrail

    Senate Democrats considering the destruction of another set of Senate rules might want to heed the words of English lawyer and chancellor Sir Thomas More to his son-in-law centuries ago: And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? Then-Senator Harry Reid started this modern clearcutting of the rules back in 2013. He used the “nuclear option” to lower the vote threshold for confirmation in order to stack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Senator Mitch McConnell escalated by using the same standard to confirm Supreme Court nominees. As Majority Leader Chuck Schumer toys with the idea of blowing up the legislative filibuster as well, he is potentially poised to first unravel another important — if lesser-known — Senate rule in pursuit of an all-encompassing COVID-relief bill under the terms of “budget reconciliation.” We’re talking about the Byrd Rule (named after the late Senator Robert Byrd), which limits the ability of the majority to stuff extraneous legislative goodies into budget-related proposals and still pass them with a simple-majority vote under that process. Senator Byrd saw the danger of using reconciliation, which limits amendments and debate, to pursue broader, non-budgetary legislation outside regular order. As a defender of the right of all senators to debate and amend legislation, he fastened these restrictions onto the reconciliation process. This is for the greater good: the Byrd Rule protects Social Security from the reconciliation process, for instance, while limiting committees to proposals in their jurisdiction and requiring that the budget relevance of any proposal considered under this process be more than “merely incidental.” What this means is that major legislative policy changes can be made only when all senators have the right to fully debate and amend legislation — and to filibuster. Reconciliation otherwise “streamlines” this process at the expense of the minority. Today, fueled by rage and revenge, the leaders of the Senate care nothing for the reasons behind the rules; they want only to pass their legislation as quickly as possible. Most of the attention these past weeks has gone to the $15 minimum wage contained inside the COVID-relief package. This hardly meets the reconciliation standard on its own, but there will be other violations of the Byrd Rule in the bill the House will send to the Senate. That’s why Senate Democrats could aim to break the glass on Senate rules. As described by parliamentary expert Martin Gold, there are two ways to achieve this. First, there’s the more targeted attack on the Byrd Rule. Say Vice President Harris is in the chair when a senator raises a point of order against, for example, the minimum-wage hike. The Senate parliamentarian advises her that this particular section of the reconciliation bill is out of order. Despite all evidence and precedent that the section is out of order, the VP rules otherwise. Now the section takes only a simple majority to pass. However, if a senator who supports the Byrd Rule challenges the ruling of the chair, it will require a 60-vote majority to overrule Harris. That’s a high bar. So here, the chair’s judgment, which likely would stand, changes the precedent so that any other item in the bill that violates the Byrd Rule can be ruled acceptable under the new standard just established by the vice president. Republicans would have loved this when they were trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, but they respected Senate rules protecting the rights of the minority. This limited, surgical strike on the Byrd Rule would still disrupt the precedent in perpetuity. Meanwhile, there’s a broader attack that could be implemented. In this scenario, the majority leader addresses the chair and says that waiving the Byrd Rule only takes a simple-majority vote. It is clear under the rules and the precedents that this is false. If the chair rules that it takes 60 votes to waive the Byrd Rule, the majority leader then appeals the ruling of the chair, which takes a simple-majority vote to overturn. Bingo — the protections of the Byrd Rule are dead, and now it takes only a simple-majority vote to put any legislative proposal the majority wants into the budget-reconciliation bill, bypassing legitimate debate and amendment. The result of this action would threaten any rule in the Senate. If at any time the majority wants to get rid of any rule, all they would have to do is appeal the ruling of the chair and muster a simple majority — silencing the opposition and forcing their will on the American people. Once upon a time, the U.S. Senate was called the world’s greatest deliberative body. As envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, there were rules that protected the minority and allowed for thorough debate. Sadly, it appears this current Senate majority cares little for the precedents that earned the U.S. Senate that title. But some caution on their part might be well-advised self-interest; tables have been known to turn. Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated with a corrected version of the quote attributed to Sir Thomas More.

  • Three dead, 10 hurt after ‘devastating’ tornado hits coastal North Carolina county

    Officials are continuing to search through debris Tuesday morning.

  • More Inside an Eclectic Los Angeles Wonderland Home designed by AD100 Firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero

    “When people get older, they often lose their playful spirit. I want to hold on to the fun,” said the owner Yoram Heller when it came to the design of the home.Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • U.S. reassures Turkey over executions after Erdogan calls response 'a joke'

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday reassured Ankara that Washington blames the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the executions of 13 kidnapped Turks in northern Iraq, after Turkey called an earlier U.S. statement on the killings "a joke." Turkey said on Sunday militants from the outlawed PKK executed the captives, including Turkish military and police personnel, amid a military operation against the group.

  • 'Black panther' spotted in southern Italy could be escaped pet of a mafia boss

    A mafia boss's pet panther could be on the loose after a large black cat was spotted roaming in the countryside of southern Italy. The big feline was seen and photographed on several occasions by people in the southern region of Puglia, the home turf of the shadowy Sacra Corona mafia, the least known of Italy's criminal networks. Locals suggest the mob could be the cat's owners. Police and rangers have been deployed and a helicopter has carried out surveillance over the countryside outside the coastal town of Bari as authorities attempt the capture it.

  • 500 Black and Asian Community Members Rally in Oakland as Holiday Weekend Sees Wave of Attacks, Robberies

    Members of Black and Asian communities convened on Saturday in Oakland, CA to rally against recent anti-Asian attacks, especially those in the Bay Area. What happened: During the rally, various speakers discussed the importance of solidarity among Black and Asian communities. More than 500 people showed up at Madison Park, according to NBC Bay Area.

  • Philippine court junks poll protest by late dictator’s son

    The Philippine Supreme Court has dismissed an election protest by the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, thwarting his attempt to overturn his narrow defeat in the 2016 vice presidential election in what could have been a stunning political comeback. The 15-member court, which voted as an electoral tribunal, unanimously rejected the protest filed by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after he lost to opposition leader Leni Robredo, court spokesperson Brian Hosaka said Tuesday. Marcos Jr. did not immediately comment on the court decision.

  • Japan to provide $4.8 million grant to Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh conflict

    Japan on Tuesday said it decided to extend an emergency aid grant to Armenia and Azerbaijan totalling $4.8 million, in response to the humanitarian crisis created as a result of last year's six-week conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Fighting erupted between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces on Sept. 27 and ended on Nov. 10 when a Russian-brokered peace deal ushered in a ceasefire, locking in territorial gains for Azerbaijan. Thousands died in what was the heaviest military confrontation over Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s.

  • Large Israeli study shows Pfizer's vaccine cuts symptomatic COVID-19 by 94 percent

    Israel has now fully vaccinated 28 percent of its population against COVID-19 and administered the first dose to 42 percent of its nine million inhabitants, and its data is very promising. Clalit, the largest of Israel's four health-care providers, reported Sunday that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has resulted in a 94 percent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among those who have gotten both doses and a 92 percent decline in severe illness. Clalit compared 600,000 Israelis who have been fully vaccinated against an equal number who have not, pairing vaccinated people and non-vaccinated people with a similar age and health profile. The majority of people studied were age 16 to 59, but 170,000 of the 600,000 Israelis were 60 or older. "It is now unequivocal that Pfizer's vaccine against the coronavirus is incredibly effective in real life one week after the second dose, just as was found in the clinical study," Ran Balicer, Clalit's chief innovation officer and one of the study's authors, said in a statement Sunday. He said the vaccine is even more effective two weeks after the second shot. Israel plans to inoculate most of its population by March, and in return for its early access to the Pfizer vaccine, the country agreed to share its data on vaccine safety, effectiveness, and side effects, The Wall Street Journal reports. Overall, COVID-19 cases have dropped by 41 percent in Israel while hospitalizations have dropped by a third, public health experts Ezekiel Emanuel, Céline Gounder, Michael Osterholm, Luciana Borio, Atul Gawande, and Rick Bright write in a USA Today op-ed. "All seven COVID-19 vaccines that have completed large efficacy trials" appear "to be 100 percent effective for serious complications" and death, they added, so "our advice is simple: Take whatever vaccine is offered to you. Right now, all of the vaccines are the 'best.'" More stories from theweek.com7 scathingly funny cartoons about Republicans' impeachment cowardiceMillions of Texas households are still without power in a brutally cold winter storm. What went wrong?Tornado kills at least 3 in coastal North Carolina