Wall Street analysts have mostly applauded the price cuts, touting Tesla’s ability to undercut rivals who are unwilling or unable to sacrifice profit margins for volume. Tesla’s stock price is up about 70 percent this year as of April 10.
Investment firm Baird reiterated its bullish stance on Tesla this week.
“We continue to believe Tesla will be able to maintain industry-leading operating margins and is in the best position among auto peers to weather economic headwinds,” Baird said in a research note.
Tesla’s EV competition in the January-February period was made up of 23 automakers which, combined, didn’t crack 50 percent of the market, the registration data showed.
Chevrolet surged this year on sales of its Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, which have benefited from greater production, a sub-$30,000 starting price and the new federal tax incentives.
New registrations for the two Bolt models combined were 13,919 in the January-February period, Experian data shows. Because of a recall, Chevrolet sold fewer than 100 of them in the year-earlier period.
New EV registrations at Ford more than doubled to 10,610 in January and February combined. Ford’s F-150 Lightning, at 4,617, beat the Rivian R1T pickup at 2,744 registrations in the two-month period.
Volkswagen was the No. 4 EV brand with 7,151 new registrations of its ID4 crossover, a 250 percent gain from a year earlier.
Hyundai had 5,105 registrations for fifth place. The Ioniq 5 crossover had 3,783 registrations for a 1.5 percent increase over January-February 2022. Hyundai lost access to the federal EV tax credit last summer under new rules that require vehicles to be assembled in North America. The Ioniq 5 is imported from South Korea.
EV startup Rivian was in sixth place with 4,295 new registrations, including 1,551 for the R1S crossover, which had zero registrations in January-February last year. Rivian also makes commercial vans for Amazon that are not included in the Experian data.
Kia had 4,238 EV registrations in the two-month period this year, an 8.3 percent decline. The EV6 crossover led with 2,586 new registrations, a 17 percent increase, while the Niro EV had 1,652 for a 31 percent drop. Kia also lost access to the incentive because its models are imported from South Korea.
BMW was in eighth place with 4,092 registrations, up from just 116 in January-February last year. The i4 sedan had 2,835, the iX crossover had 1,061 and the i7 sedan had 196, Experian said.
Mercedes-Benz had 4,004 registrations for ninth place, and Nissan had 2,822 registrations for 10th place in the two-month period. Nissan’s new Ariya crossover had 1,141. Audi, with eight EV models, had 2,727 registrations. Polestar had 2,113.
Lucid Motors, which launched its Air sedan in 2021, had 1,063 registrations in the first two months of the year. Toyota had 983 from its bZ4X, and Subaru had 929 from its Solterra.
Lexus had three registrations for its new RZ crossover, its first EV, and Vietnamese automaker VinFast had one registration for its VF 8 crossover, according to Experian data.
