Customers in the auto industry have an even higher value than normal buyers who have been poached by another brand or preferably another group – some manufacturers even openly pay “conquest premiums” for it. As a fairly new company, Tesla has to re-conquer almost all buyers of its electric cars, and where they come from allows interesting conclusions to be drawn. For the first time, the company has now released data for Europe and Germany.
Europe follows US trend at Tesla
According to this, what has already been observed in the USA is repeated in Europe: Tesla buyers come on the one hand from premium brands, so they often switch from one of the German manufacturers Audi, BMW and Mercedes to an electric car from California. In fact, only top brands from Germany can be found in the European top 5 changers to Tesla. At the same time, many customers spent significantly more money on buying a Tesla than on their previous car. According to the company, this is also due to the fact that not only the acquisition costs are increasingly being considered, but also the lower operating costs for electric cars and especially Tesla’s.
The data now sent by Tesla by e-mail refer to the first year since the start of large deliveries of the Model 3 in Germany and Europe, i.e. from February 2019 to February 2020. According to this, most buyers of a Tesla Model 3 in Europe had this Time before a VW Golf. The second most common victim of conquest was the BMW 3 Series, followed by the Audi A3, the BMW 5 Series and the Audi A4. The top position golf as a Tesla exchange could simply be because it is so common. But it also clearly demonstrates Tesla’s statement that 9 of the 20 most frequently swapped models were cheaper than the newly purchased Model 3.
Common: Nissan Leaf versus Model 3
And the numbers show that with Audi and BMW, the two sportier of the three German premium brands had to give Tesla more feathers than Mercedes, with its more comfort-oriented image. And while Mercedes will soon be offering a luxurious Tesla alternative on a purely electric basis, at least in the luxury class, and Audi and the other VW brands are planning a large number of new E models, BMW will continue to use mixed platforms such as the i4 – and in the long term, according to its own statement, also on hydrogen cars.
The Bavarian group was hit hardest in his home country of all places: in Germany, most buyers of a Tesla Model 3 had a model from the BMW 3 Series in the first year. So more customers switched to the Tesla from the dynamic volume model from Bavaria than from any other car; the Golf follows in second place in this country. BMW comes in third place with the 1 series. The fourth most buyers in Germany lost the Mercedes E-Class to the Tesla Model 3. And the Nissan Leaf even ranked 5th of the most frequently exchanged for a Model 3 with an electric car.
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