US electric car producer Tesla has long been a more than unpleasant challenger.
In the volume market, the Californians can not face the Germans yet, but just in the lucrative top-class car world Tesla is robbing the Germans of their most affluent clientele.
Last year, the electric car manufacturer in Europe was able to sell more copies of its flagship model than Mercedes and BMW . This reports the trade magazine “Automotive News Europe”, citing figures from the market research institute Jato.
Model S was sold in the past year in Europe 16,132 times – a whopping plus of 30 percent. The German top models, were much less successful. Mercedes increased the sales of the S-Class by a tiny three percent to 13,359 copies, the 7 Series BMW drove with 11,735 vehicles sold even a minus of 13 percent.
And even in the fast-growing SUV segment, the Californians attack with the Model X: With 12,000 vehicles sold, the electric city SUV was sold in about as much as the Porsche Cayenne. The Californians even leave behind the BMW X6. “This is an alarm signal for traditional carmakers like Mercedes,” the newspaper quotes market researcher Filipe Munoz from Jato. “Small but smart brands can beat them in their home market”.
In fact, the upper class for Daimler is hard to underestimate. Mercedes S-Class. is still world’s top model is still the number one mainly due to China. Tesla is significantly weaker than the German competition in China.
In the US market Tesla has the top position. The Model S was sold28,800 times last year. almost twice as much as the S-Class.
Germans are looking for a suitable answer to defend the crown in the upper class segment. New models are coming out: Audi will present at the Geneva Motor Show in early March its first fully electric model. Porsche has already announced plans to launch Mission E, a new model S competitor.
BUY, SELL, KEEP 
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