It’s no secret that Tesla is taking the US automobile market by
storm. Its 103,000 plus new retail registrations through the first
five months of this year are up 65% versus a year ago in a market
up 41%, and this volume ranks fourth among the 18 luxury makes,
trailing only BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus.
At the model level, Tesla’s midsize crossover Model Y (in its
second year on the market) is leading its segment and out-pacing
perennial leader Lexus RX by a robust 15,810 units based on May
2021 CYTD figures. The Model 3’s 39,246 retail registrations
through May 2021 CYTD are almost three times that of any competitor
in the Luxury Compact Car Segment and account for 29% of all that
segment’s retail registrations. And, given the fact that half of
Tesla’s buyers have a mainstream vehicle in the garage, it appears
that Tesla is pulling in customers from all brands. It’s
understandable to wonder if anyone can stop Tesla’s pace.
In looking more closely at the data, it turns out there
is a brand that is managing to hold its own,
relatively speaking, with Tesla. While Tesla enjoys a robust 5.4
conquest/defection ratio (conquests coming into the brand divided
by defections leaving the brand) with its luxury competitors, and a
3.0 ratio versus the industry, its ratio with Porsche is just 1.42,
lowest among all ongoing luxury brands (Tesla’s ratio with Genesis
is 1.1 but Genesis’s defection volume is artificially low as it has
not been on the market for a complete ownership cycle, and Polestar
is just launching and obviously will not have any defections).
And, this is not a flash-in-the-pan, one-time occurrence for
Porsche. As the chart below illustrates, Porsche’s ratio with Tesla
consistently has been below the overall luxury segment’s ratio with
Tesla, dating back to at least 2016, and the gap has widened more
recently. Furthermore, when the Model 3, for which Porsche does not
have a competitor, is removed from Tesla’s portfolio, Tesla’s ratio
with Porsche declined even further in two of the past five
år.
Lastly, IHS Markit data indicate that with the recent
introduction of the Taycan full size luxury EV, Porsche’s position
with Tesla is likely to improve. Among the ten models to which the
Tesla Model X and Model S are most likely to defect (on a net basis
(conquest less defection)), Taycan ranks third and first,
henholdsvis.
In fact, the Taycan now leads the Luxury Full Size Car Segment
with 3,765 retail deliveries through May 2021 CYTD, versus 1,800
for the Model S; these data are in stark contrast to year-ago
results when Model S registrations were 5,058 versus just 422
Taycans.
Taycan still is relatively new to the market, and its defections
will rise as more customers reach the normal time when defections
occur. But thus far, the Taycan has proven a formidable competitor
for the Model S and Model X, and Porsche and its first EV generally
have withstood the major net defections to Tesla experienced by
most of the industry.
Source: http://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/tesla-encounters-formidable-competition.html