Tesla brings an end to Ford’s decade-long reign at top of customer loyalty rankings

Tesla has just taken top spot on the key metric of repeat customers – those who come back and purchase another Tesla – after knocking Ford from the top spot on the customer loyalty podium that the legacy carmaker has held for nine years. 

Tesla has won S&P Global Mobility’s automotive loyalty awards on the back of returning customers and its domination in the US battery electric vehicle market. 

Overall, Tesla received five awards in the Manufacturer and Make loyalty category of the S&P awards:

• Overall Loyalty to Make
• Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make
• Most Improved Make Loyalty
• Highest Conquest Percentage
• Alternative Powertrain Loyalty to Make

Tesla has previously won the Highest Conquest Percentage and Alternative Powertrain Loyalty to Make awards, so the other three also helped with its overall brand loyalty. Tesla’s total Make loyalty rate was 67.2% according to S&P.

The “Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make” category was also a major win for Tesla this time around and showed that 52 percent of Tesla’s repeat customers were from ethnically diverse backgrounds. 

Looking at the models which attracted the most loyalty were the Tesla Model 3 which won the Luxury Small Car award. The larger SUV, Tesla’s Model Y received the Luxury Small Utility award.

S&P Global Mobility explained the process for loyalty awards as:  “Loyalty is determined when a household that owns a new vehicle returns to market and acquires another new vehicle of the same make, model, or manufacturer. The newly acquired vehicle may be either a replacement or an addition to the household fleet.”

This is true for Tesla in even the Australian context when it goes to repeat customer ownership.

We have seen it here in Australia with timings in Tesla Model 3 listings. According to carloop‘s used Tesla tracker, the used Model 3 listings increased sharply on the back of the new Tesla Model Y launch back in July 2022. 

As more ships of Tesla Model Ys arrived, so did the selling of older Tesla Model 3s which showcased the loyalty existing Tesla Model 3 customers have with the brand.

Multiple factors have contributed to strong brand loyalty for Tesla. Some of these include regular software updates, high vehicle efficiency, vehicle and app integration, value-for-money in the luxury segments, lower cost of ownership and access to the Tesla supercharger network. 

With other brands starting to bring more affordable options into the market, Tesla may have more competition in the EV space. At the same time, it’s hard to see others offering customer loyalty-focused features built right into their products, like Tesla does, anytime soon.