California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA) has compiled California’s entire automotive sales data for 2022 and published a report. What’s interesting in this report is Tesla’s dominance of the market and not just in electric vehicles but overall.
A total of 1,667,831 light vehicles were registered in California in 2022. Tesla sold 87,257 units of its Model Y electric SUV which represents a share of 5.2% of the overall market closely followed by the Tesla Model 3 compact sedan with a 4.7% share (78,934 units). This is a YoY growth of 44.5% (Model Y) and 47.3% (Model 3) compared to the previous year 2021.
CNCDA divided the California automotive market into two major segments, Passenger Cars (sedans) and Light Trucks (pickup trucks & SUVs). Tesla Model 3 and Model Y topped the vehicle registration charts for both of these segments respectively (check tables below for the top 5 rankings).
Top-Selling Passenger Cars in California (2022)
| Model | Registrations | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tesla Model 3 | 78,934 | 15.0% |
| Toyota Camry | 55,967 | 10.7% |
| Toyota Corolla | 39,865 | 7.6% |
| Honda Accord | 32,605 | 6.2% |
| Honda Civic | 31,867 | 6.1% |
With Tesla sales skyrocketing every year, the reign of the Toyota Camry as the best-selling sedan has finally come to an end. Toyota Corolla, Honda Accord, and Civic are left way behind — and the gap will widen with each passing year as people incline more and more towards EVs.
Top-Selling Light Trucks in California (2022)
| Model | Registrations | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tesla Model Y | 87,257 | 7.6% |
| Toyota RAV4 | 59,794 | 5.2% |
| Ford F-Series | 40,232 | 3.5% |
| Chevrolet Silverado | 38,601 | 3.4% |
| Toyota Tacoma | 38,306 | 3.4% |
Tesla sold 27,463 more Model Ys compared to Toyota’s RAV4 SUV — that’s a staggering difference of ~46% in California sales for the year 2022.
Although Toyota still has an overall dominance in sales over Tesla, the landscape is changing fast. Just last month, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda announced that he is stepping down to let a new global leader of the company take his place — and make the Japanese automaker more relevant during the electric vehicle revolution.
Top Selling Car Brands in California in 2022
However, in California, Tesla has acquired an 11.2% share of the automotive market (ICE and EV combined). Toyota has 17.3% of the Californian market in its pocket but it will take the Japanese automaker a lot of effort to retain its share.
If we look at Graph 1.2 below, we can see that Toyota despite being the top-selling brand overall, lost a massive 13.8% of its California auto market share last year. While on the other hand, Tesla gained a colossal 54.2% share in California in 2022.
Genesis is the 2nd biggest market share gainer after Tesla with 26.5% more vehicle registration for its brand in 2022 compared to 2021.
Volkswagen, Volvo, and Honda were among the biggest losers in California in 2022 with -24.6%, -21.7%, and -34.5% loss of the market share respectively.
In the Compact Luxury SUV segment, Tesla Model Y gained a monopoly with a 53.5% share. Tesla Model 3 on the other hand dominated the Near Luxury Cars division with a 55.1% share (report PDF below).
And not just Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla also dominated the Luxury and High-End Sports Car segment by selling 9,234 units in California in 2022 (holding 19.7% market share). BMW 5-Series came 2nd with 4,898 units sold (10.4%) — almost half of the new Tesla Model S sales.
Mercedes Benz however held the crown in the Luxury Sports Car segment with a total of 26.2% market share. Mercedes sold 12,257 cars in California in 2022 with its three models i.e. E-Class (4,482 units), S-Class(4,444 units), and EQS (3,331 units).
Tesla (TSLA) had a great year in terms of vehicle sales last year as the automaker scored new records in Q4 and the entire year 2022.
Tesla is not just disrupting the automotive markets in its home country but also globally. And with potential new factories coming to Canada and Mexico in the near-term future, Tesla is prepared to dominate the global automotive market not just for EVs but for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars as well — like we just witnessed in California last year.
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