Luxury Brand Loyalty Is Diminishing, But Not For Tesla

Luxury automotive brand loyalty is a far less prominent force. Many legacy automakers are seeing customers buying Teslas instead.

Row of new Tesla Model X electric cars in front of dealership

Andrew Lambrecht

By: Andrew Lambrecht

Jul 18, 2023 at 3:06pm ET

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Automotive brand loyalty reveals how likely a household owning a particular vehicle make will return to the same company for their next purchase. Currently, GM is leading, mainly thanks to its diverse portfolio, including Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, and Buick. By offering an array of vehicles through several brands, owners might feel compelled to stay within that company's ecosystem, enhancing loyalty.

In the luxury sector, brand loyalty is not as prevalent. In fact, it's a thing of the past for almost all automakers. According to WardsAuto's Alysha Webb, "In the luxury brand segment, in the first four months of the year, fewer than half of households bought the same brand when they returned to market." But there was one significant outlier--- Tesla, with 68% brand loyalty.

In 2023 thus far, 7.5% of BMW households switched to Tesla, up from 6.8% the previous year. Lexus saw 7.2% of drivers opting for Tesla this year as opposed to 5.8% last year. 8.9% of Mercedes-Benz drivers went for Tesla this year, compared to 7.8% in 2022.

Land Rover saw 4.8% of its households buying a Tesla as their next car, but this number was slightly down from 6.1% last year. Even considering this instance, luxury car-owning households are buying Teslas.

Tesla Model Y

The kicker here is that Tesla hasn't launched a new vehicle since the Model Y in early 2020. There have been revisions to all of its products even though the lineup has remained unchanged: a high-end sedan and crossover and a mainstream sedan and crossover. At present, Tesla doesn't offer a wide array of products: it is currently missing a pickup truck, full-size SUV, compact crossover, and other desirable entries.

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That said, Tesla's influence among other luxury automakers is noteworthy. But tracking this in the coming years will be fascinating. Automakers like BMW and Mercedes recently launched an array of entries and plan to introduce more soon.

Mercedes-Benz currently has five electric vehicles on dealership lots: the EQB, EQE, EQE SUV, EQS, and EQS SUV. While these vehicles offer more luxury amenities than Tesla and arrive at higher prices, more Mercedes households may rather stay with the brand for their electric car purchase. It will be interesting to see if these product launches from established automakers will help retain more of their respective households.

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Source: WardsAuto

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