I put together a list of premium marques, rounded to the nearest thousand. It excludes those I'd consider luxury although at times there is overlap between them. Many of the figures come from the manufacturer while some others are based on sales I do know with the balance estimated.
BMW is the largest of all the brands and with MINI added clearly the leading marque. Tesla has achieved fourth place for two years now and not that far away from improving on that. The semiconductor shortage hit many brands, especially JLR, but Tesla didn't seem to suffer in that regard.
The most interesting part for me was further down, with long standing names rubbing shoulders - or about to - with upstart start ups. One of the newbies in terms of volume has been around since 1958. Any guesses?
Hongqi (top picture) made its first car in 1958 although it hasn't been continuously produced since then. It reminded me of the now defunct Zil marque from Russia. It was large and premium but made for local consumption and for officials. How many were made I can't say but nothing like the numbers being produced now.
Neither Acura (the red car above) nor Infiniti had a strong 2022 but early signs for 2023 paint a rosier picture. It's been a tough road for Rivian and Lucid and 2023 will be important for both of them. Alfa Romeo (picture to the right) will do much better with the new Tonale. With a lessening of the chip shortage, manufacturers will be hoping for improved sales for 2023.
No comments:
Post a Comment