• The Tesla Model Y is second only to the Ford F-150 in U.S. sales so far this year.
For years, the three best-selling vehicles in the US industry, all categories together, have been pickup trucks from the three major American manufacturers. That power trio is led by the Ford F-150, followed by the Chevrolet Silverado and the Ram 1500.
Since 2017, fourth place has been occupied by the Toyota RAV4.
It's so set in stone that we take it for granted.
But it seems the times, they are a-changing. This very year in fact. The Tesla Model Y is headed to the podium in 2023 as it continues its rise to the top of the sales chart in the United States.
The EV is doing extraordinarily well everywhere - it ended the first quarter of 2023 as the world's best-selling passenger car. But the Model Y is on fire in the USA too.
In the first four months of the year, sales doubled to 127,541 units compared with the same period in 2022. This makes it the second best-selling vehicle in the United States, all categories combined, after the Ford F-150 pickup, which remains alone in another universe with 240,000 units sold over the same period.
So this means, of course, that more Tesla Model Ys were sold than Chevrolet Silverados, Ram 1500s and Toyota RAV4s.
At Tesla, the Model Y accounted for more than half of all the brand's vehicle registrations - 211,842 - followed by the Model 3 with 72,259 sales (an increase of 28 percent on last year).
What's even more incredible is that the Model Y's is performing so well at a time when EV sales still account for only a small percentage of overall vehicles sales in the U.S. – 7 percent in April. That percentage continues to rise rapidly, mind you. (as a comparison, in Q1 of 2022 the figure was 4.4 percent). In any case, Tesla’s dominance of the segment is still something to behold.
The Model Y's sales results lend weight to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's prediction that it would become the world's best-selling passenger car by 2023.
For the model's good results to continue, however, the price will have to stay where it is. Tesla has been prone to yo-yoing the pricing of many of its products, and this has benefited the Model Y, which has seen its cost drop from $67,440 USD to $49,380 USD since December 2022.