Tesla overtakes Audi in global car sales, on track to beat BMW and Mercedes

Tesla has overtaken German carmaker Audi in global sales for the first time in Q1 of 2023, selling 422,875 cars globally to beat Audi’s total of 415,700.

Research from Schmidt Automotive shows that Audi has become the first German premium volume manufacturer to witness its global quarterly volumes fall behind Tesla’s.

Schmidt Automotive says Tesla’s sales have benefitted from sharp price cuts and rapidly scaling production rates at its Brandenburg factory in Germany.

The German factory reached a production rate of 5,000 cars per week in March up from 3,000 in December after opening just over 12 month’s ago.

Tesla’s German factory is experiencing incredible growth that could see it hit 10,000 cars per week by the end of this year.

With Tesla’s staggering global production growth over the last four years set to continue this year, the EV maker on track to hit between 1.8 and 2 million cars in 2023. That’s up from 1.3 million in 2022.

That rate of production growth would see Tesla also race past BMW and Mercedes global sales numbers as early as Q4 this year.

Schmidt Automotive says Tesla appears to be moving towards more volume brand territory and that volume brands such as Renault Group, Stellantis brands and Volkswagen Group are likely to come under pressure as Tesla crashes through “premium” into “volume” segments.