Elon Musk has grown Tesla from an avant-garde start-up to a company that has changed the way regular people look at electric cars. Tesla Motors has grown exponentially over the last few years with much help from their most popular product the Tesla Model 3, which has been breaking sales records all around the world.
With constant software updates enhancing performance and functionality, this computer on wheels is one of the most sought-after assets in the car market. So, it comes as no surprise that the Tesla customer is proud to be an owner, and has become quite a group of EV evangelists who hold their loyalty strongly to the Californian marque.
Much like Porsche or even BMW, your first car from the brand never seems to be your last. Tesla's unique selling point here is that you can be part of the future for a somewhat affordable price. An attainable yet aspirational lifestyle choice, the Tesla product has gained a big and trustworthy following, here's why.
Tesla Brand Loyalty Is Very High
Tesla was announced the leader in automotive brand loyalty in a recent piece of Experian Automotive research on U.S car registrations. The Californian leaders were followed by Toyota, Honda, and Ford. In terms of umbrella group manufacturers which produce products for several brands, General Motors had the highest loyalty score, Experian found.
Marty Miller, a senior automotive industry consultant for Experian said that “vehicle loyalty is a metric to measure devotion of your customers,” In a recent webinar, Miller explained that Experian measures loyalty in several different ways. Brand loyalty is when someone gets rid of a vehicle and sells, scraps, or transfers ownership, based on U.S registration data, but then goes to register a new vehicle from the same brand.
Brand loyalty doesn’t have to be a repurchase of specifically the same model, just the same brand. Although, Experian has found ways to measure model loyalty, dealer loyalty, and loyalty in other ways, too. A phenomenon called “household” loyalty is when a buyer registers a new vehicle, and someone in the same household already had registered one from the same brand. This doesn't mean that the buyer got rid of a vehicle doing so, so in turn, two cars from the same brand are registered to the same address.
The point here is that Tesla (along with Subaru) led in both loyalty measures for the 12-month period ending July 2020, according to Experian. “One thing is consistent right now, that even with lower vehicle volume, we found that Tesla and Subaru lead across both loyalty metrics during this time period,” Miller noted.
Specifically, 70.7% of Tesla owners who got rid of a Tesla acquired another new Tesla. And 74.7% of Tesla owners showed household loyalty. Subaru was No. 2 in both measures: 67.8% in brand loyalty for the same owner, and 72.2% loyalty for the same household. Tesla has marketed itself as the car manufacturer of the future and people are buying it (repeatedly!).
In 2020, Tesla was the only major brand that showed an increase in sales, up 21.4% to an estimated 196,000, according to the Automotive News Data Center. This is with help of the second-hand market for tesla being extremely solid and some used cars even selling for a premium on a brand new one due to the global shortages of microchips and supply issues in general.
Why Tesla Is So Popular?
Tesla is really popular right now. At the minute it seems that they are verging on becoming the Apple of electric vehicles. It feels like everybody braving the switch to EV is tempted by Tesla. In the same way that buying an iPhone was the easiest way to move away from blackberry or other dated mobile phones, Tesla offers a futuristic alternative for motoring.
Aside from the minimal and space-age approach. Their products are good. The build quality isn't lacking and apart from a few hiccups with the autopilot system, their products are mainly quite safe. Along with this, it must be said that in terms of affordability tesla does offer a lot of bang for the buck, with their class rivals in the EV world being much more expensive.
Tesla is years ahead of the field. In research, battery manufacturing and most importantly charging infrastructure. In Europe especially, Tesla superchargers seem to be the only consistent EV fast charger that won't leave you stranded in case it's not operational. Any service station throughout the continent will have a Tesla supercharger, and that is where other brands have some serious catching up to do.
Tesla has become a lifestyle choice, a serious contender to be the vehicle of the future. With a tech mogul like Elon Musk at the helm, it's no surprise that Tesla has become a brand with a cult following. Much like a Porsche product is for the petrolhead and Volvo is for those seeking reliability, Tesla offers a mix between technology and motoring. It's so effective that it's getting people who weren't into cars interested in the world of mobility.