On the fourth month of BMW selling its all-new BMW i3, the sales numbers are now 70% higher than Tesla’s in the U.S. market.
InsideEVs reports best estimates which put the number of Tesla cars in August at the 600 mark while BMW i3 sold to 1,025 customers.
This does actually mark the 3rd month in a row sales have have increased, previous results all numbers in the 300s. Last month 363 i3s were sold, slight higher than June (358 units).
The dealership inventory of i3 models rose to more than 2,000 units in August. BMW Financial Services also launched a sales support program for the i3 which aims to help move units off the inventory.
As foretold by Tesla, in the summer 2014, the company focused on increasing sales in Asia, with very few units planted to be sold in the U.S. market.
Not helping August sales was Tesla shutting down its Fremont assembly facility for two weeks in late July/early August in preparation for the upcoming Model X, and to expand Model S production by 25%.
READ: Tesla Model S Test Drive
A delay in restarting production was reported by Tesla.
What about the first half of 2014 as a whole? Tesla’s U.S. sales fell from 10,050 cars in 2013 to 7,400 in 2014. That’s a 26% decline.
On the good news front, production on the bigger/faster/stronger assembly line in Fremont is now going nuclear with laser focus on the United States, so we expect to see different numbers next month.
