Tesla Model 3 returned to the list of the top ten best-selling passenger cars in the United States in April, taking the ninth spot, according to rankings by auto sales tracking site GoodCarBadCar.
This is the first time that Model 3 has made it on the U.S. top 10 best-selling cars list since December last year.
Back then, Tesla's flagship affordable model ranked fifth in the total U.S. car sales standings with 25,250 Model 3s sold in the last month of 2018. For full 2018, Tesla Model 3 sales in the U.S. were 140,317 cars.
According to the GoodCarBadCar rankings and data for April 2019, Tesla Model 3 sales in April stood at 10,050 units, while year-to-date to April, Model 3 sold 32,475 vehicles in the United States, up by 169 percent compared to the same period of 2018.
The Tesla Model 3 absence from the top 10 best-selling cars in the United States between January and March this year could be explained with the reduced tax credit in the U.S. and with the electric vehicle (EV) maker's push to start delivering Model 3 on the international markets.
Tesla started deliveries of Model 3 in Europe in the first quarter of 2019.
However, in Q1, Tesla had a challenging time with deliveries, with its total vehicle deliveries slumping by 31 percent from the previous quarter, ending well below analyst estimates. Tesla delivered around 63,000 vehicles in Q1, up by 110 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018, but 31 percent lower than the vehicles delivered in Q4 2018.
Tesla Model 3 topped the global EV sales ranking compiled by CleanTechnica and EV Volumes for 2018. In fact, Tesla as a brand dominated the top 5, with all three of its models there.
But the race to ramp up production of Tesla Model 3 last year depleted the EV maker's cash and Tesla finally resorted to raising capital through offering common stock and convertible bonds in a move that analysts described as "net positive" and probably long overdue.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More