Tesla’s sales in Germany jumped 912% in January

Tesla’s sales have been growing across Europe over the past several months, though its dent in the German automotive market may just be beginning to hit its stride. Last year, Tesla overtook Volkswagen as the country’s best-selling electric vehicle brand, and it just reached a huge new sales milestone last month indicating the company’s continued growth.

Above: A Tesla Model 3 (Image: Casey Murphy / EVANNEX).

German Tesla sales jumped by 912.2 percent year over year in January, with 4,241 EVs sold during the month, according to data from the KBA in a report from Teslarati. Tesla’s sales represented 2.4 percent of Germany’s auto market as a whole during the month, and in no small part due to the automaker’s opening of a new Gigafactory in Grünheide last year.

Tesla saw just 419 vehicle registrations in Germany in January 2022. As Tesla only officially opened its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg last year, the year-over-year accomplishment looks even more impressive. While January’s sales weren’t that impressive for Tesla in recent months, the comparison to January 2022 points to how much the automaker has been able to ramp up domestic production in Germany within the last year.

Giga Berlin reached a production milestone of around 3,000 Model Y units per week in December, which has helped Tesla keep up with high demand to some extent.

Still, Brandenburg Economic Minister Jörg Steinbach said last month that Tesla should ramp production at Giga Berlin even more, in order to help reduce wait times for consumers. The statement was made at an event hosted by the German union IG Metall, and a recent subsidy boost from the German government has stoked consumer demand even more.

Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai has also been helping with European vehicle deliveries as the Grünheide factory ramps up production, and it was delivering even more vehicles last January as Giga Berlin awaited approval.

It’s also worth noting that Tesla usually prioritizes exports early in each quarter, later ramping up domestic deliveries near the end of the quarter. This means that Tesla could see even more sales increases in the German market as the first quarter of the year progresses. In October 2022, for example, Tesla sold 3,185 vehicles in Germany, before selling 16,948 in December.

With all of this in mind, we can probably expect a lot more Tesla deliveries in Germany over the next few months. And as classic German brands such as Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW struggle to catch up to Tesla’s EV dominance, the country’s auto market will remain an important one as the world transitions away from gas cars.

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