These are Canada’s best-selling luxury cars in 2015
Mercedes-Benz C-Class (photo: Mercedes-Benz)
Published Friday, August 28, two thousand fifteen Three:29PM EDT
When most people think of luxury automotive brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and Lexus they very likely picture a stately-looking sedan. However, while Canadians are buying record numbers of vehicles from these four best-selling premium auto brands in the country, a remarkably petite number of those vehicles are cars.
Increasingly, even premium automakers are relying on SUVs and crossovers for a large chunk of their volume – 43% at Mercedes-Benz, 44% at BMW, 48% at Audi and a whopping 61% at Lexus.
So which luxury cars are still selling well? These are the best-selling premium brand cars in Canada through the very first seven months of 2015. And guess what? The usual best-seller, the BMW three Series is not presently topping the list.
Perhaps we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the IS’s acute decline in two thousand fifteen without considering the influence of the fresh Lexus RC, which is to some degree an IS coupe. Combined, the pair would be up 9% to Two,554 units over last year’s IS sales. Together, they account for more than half of the Lexus brand’s car volume in Canada.
Concerns that a lower-priced, front-wheel-drive, entry-level car would lower the Mercedes-Benz brand’s photo in the world haven’t been validated in the Canadian market. For one thing, Mercedes-Benz was already selling the B-Class here. For another, the CLA has style – like it or hate it – on its side. Ultimately, Mercedes-Benz is selling more fresh vehicles in Canada now than ever before.
Audi Canada’s second-generation A3 is a far more effective entry point to the Audi brand than the very first A3 hatchback ever was. In only nine months last year, for example, Audi sold more A3s than in any previous total calendar year. Two thousand fifteen is significantly more healthy than that, with Audi set to sell more A3s in the very first eight months of two thousand fifteen than in nine months it was on sale 2014.
Honda Canada is on track to sell approximately Five,000 copies of the Acura TLX in 2015. The last time its TL predecessor surpassed that mark was 2005. Then again, the TLX was also tasked with substituting the TSX, which had almost Four,000 Canadian sales in 2005. The TLX is, however, outperforming the TL/TSX’s more latest spectacle – together they only attracted Three,353 buyers in all of 2013.
BMW’s three Series offspring, the four Series, is a mighty popular car in its own right. Or should we say, cars, plural? The four Series nameplate takes into account a coupe, convertible, and Gran Coupe, the latter being a four-door hatchback. Combined sales of the three Series and four Series are up 20% to eight thousand four hundred eighty seven so far this year, equal to 42% of BMW’s overall Canadian sales tally.
Set to be substituted for the two thousand sixteen model year by a visually similar A4, the outgoing model has suffered modest Canadian sales declines in each of the last two years and is falling this year, as well. Yet the A4 remains a popular car, as evidenced by its third-place ranking on this list. 41% of Audi’s Canadian passenger car sales are A4-derived.
Truthfully, the three Series lineup is much smaller than it once was. Until the fourth-quarter of 2013, two-door versions of the car also operated under the three Series banner. But those are now called four Series cars, and that separate nameplate ranks fourth on this list. The three Series is the perennial year-end leader among Canadian luxury cars, and it began eating into the top-ranked C-Class’s lead in July. The three Series ranked very first last month, outselling its Benz rival by one hundred one units.
Canadian sales of the C-Class, once the company’s entry-level model but now the fourth rung up the ladder, peaked at Ten,616 units in calendar year 2012. Mercedes-Benz should be able to top that in 2015, and if not, there’s more hope for 2016. The coupe version of this latest generation C-Class debuted in August, and should provide a boost to what is presently Canada’s best-selling luxury car nameplate next year.