Despite booming sales and popularity in the US — Tesla's Model Y recently topped sales charts, selling more than any other vehicle with the exception of the Ford F-150 — Tesla is notably absent from Autotrader's ranking of the top ten electric vehicles of 2023. Instead, the list is topped by models from traditional car makers that have recently hopped onto the electric bandwagon — perhaps another indication that Tesla is losing its first-mover advantage.
Autotrader's list of the top ten EVs of 2023, as listed in alphabetical order, plays host to the BMW i4, Ford F-150 Lightning, Genesis electrified G80, Genesis GV60, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Lucid Air, Nissan Ariya, Porsche Taycan, and Rivian R1T. Executives at Hyundai Motor Group must be quite pleased with its subsidiaries occupying four of the ten spots.
Tesla's absence from the Autotrader ranking was explained in a statement to Autoblog:
Tesla models were included in consideration but didn’t get sufficiently high scores by the editorial team to qualify for the top 10.
This means that something about Tesla's driving, quality, design, or technology wasn't quite up to scratch, according to Autotrader's team. As far as sales go, though Tesla has garnered a lot of popularity among consumers, most likely due to its industry-leading range numbers and unmatched Supercharger network.
The outcome of Autotrader's ranking could be a sign of things to come, though, since as legacy auto makers get into the electric vehicle space, Tesla may end up losing a lot of the head-start it has worked so hard for over the last decade. Even its Supercharger network is becoming less of an advantage as more EV makers sign up to use Tesla's NACS charging hardware and Supercharger network, and other charging providers catch up to Tesla in terms of charging speed and availability. A recent survey also shed light on Tesla's declining reputation with consumers, with the company dropping 50 spots among the top 100 companies in the US.
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Source(s)
Autotrader, InsideEVs, Autoblog BMW