Defining automotive luxury has never been an easy task. In fact, simply attempting to define automotive luxury is a major component of virtually every so-called premium brand’s marketing; trying to clarify what distinguishes a Range Rover from a Rogue or a Navigator from a Trailblazer.
Is it the quality of the leather? Could it be the customizability of the ambient lighting, or is it newfangled technology? Or could it be that good ol’ fashioned je ne sais quoi?
Or, more likely, does a marque’s price point and historic prestige position certain automakers at an elevated point in the hierarchy?
We’ve taken the sales figures from 16 high-end brands (Tesla doesn’t report monthly/quarterly model-specific Canadian sales figures, but estimates say the brand sold around 12,000 vehicles in 2022’s first-half) from the January-June period of 2022 to answer two questions. Which premium auto brands are presently Canada’s top sellers? And which premium auto brand vehicles are Canada’s top-selling luxury models? From Audi to Alfa Romeo, Lexus to Lincoln, and everywhere in between, we made a few discoveries.
First, premium auto brand volume is, quite predictably, declining in 2022. (There’s a global supply chain crisis that persists in dominating headlines, of course.) But the luxury end of the market is actually pacing ahead of the overall market’s 11-per-cent year-over-year drop with an 8-per-cent slide. That means the luxury auto market is actually gaining market share, albeit only slightly, from 13 per cent in 2021 to 13.6 percent halfway through 2022. In pre-pandemic 2019, the same group generated 12 per cent of all auto sales.
Second, German control of Canada’s premium market remains entrenched. There are true luxury-oriented up-and-comers, including Genesis most notably, but the breadth of appeal offered by Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, and Porsche is not easily overcome. That quartet’s market share stands at 47 per cent.
Porsche, however, is not among Canada’s top five premium brands. At least not yet. So which automakers round out the top five, and do the top brands produce all of the top models?
Brands
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5. Cadillac: 7,238, down 14 per cent
Cadillac has built a solid 1,447-unit lead over the sixth-ranked Acura brand through 2022’s first six months thanks to a couple of key factors. First, Acura’s tanking — sales plunged 29 per cent in the first-half of the year. Second, Cadillac’s flagship Escalade is a hot ticket — the $90K+ SUV produced 1,782 sales between January and June, up 5 per cent from 2021.
4. Lexus: 12,115, down 2 per cent
Although the second-quarter (down 7 per cent) didn’t follow the first-quarter’s trajectory (up 6 per cent), Lexus is still gaining market share in a sector of the Canadian auto market that’s down 8 per cent so far this year. And not surprisingly, it’s the brand’s heavy hitters that make a difference. While the ES, IS, LC, LS, RC, GX, LX, and UX combined for a 22-per-cent drop to only 3,379 units , the NX and RX that produce over 70 per cent of the brand’s volume are up 9 per cent.
3. BMW: 14,099, down 7 per cent
BMW is the first member of a German triad that controls the leaderboard, and it trails the leader by a scant 5-per-cent margin. If only BMW could turn the tide on its collapsing car lineup, BMW would likely be on track to end the year in the No.1 slot. Unfortunately, the brand’s car volume is down 31 per cent to only 3,844 units. BMW’s seven utility vehicles — plus the new iX — are up 8 per cent, producing nearly three-quarters of BMW’s Canadian sales in 2022.
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2. Mercedes-Benz: 14,835, down 8 per cent
It’s crunch time across much of the auto industry as inventory suffers and delivery timelines lengthen, but Mercedes-Benz is hanging on with a better-than-average sales decline thanks to improved sales of its two best sellers. Meanwhile, formerly core models such as the C-Class and E-Class are increasingly minimal factors — they only account for 9 per cent of the brand’s Canadian volume now. (Mercedes-Benz’s overall first-half sales total reached 18,025 units, down 3 per cent, when Sprinter and Metris vans are included in the mix.)
1. Audi: 14,853, down 13 per cent
Could 2022 end as Audi’s first year as Canada’s best-selling premium auto brand? If the remaining six months go the way of Audi’s first-quarter — when sales rose 5 per cent — it’s definitely a possibility. Unfortunately, second-quarter sales at Audi tumbled 24 per cent thanks to losses of greater than 30 per cent from the A4, A5, A6, A7, Q3, and Q8. At this stage of 2021, Audi had opened up an 835-unit margin over Mercedes-Benz but ended the year nearly 2,500 sales abaft.
Vehicles
5. Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class: 3,806, up 3 per cent
Mercedes-Benz’s first consumer-oriented SUV was the M-Class, which was commonly badged as the ML. (Yes, there was an SUV before this, but the original Geländewagen was far from widely available.) Now a quarter-century into its tenure and operating as the GLE, it’s one of a wide variety of Mercedes-Benz utilities, including the better-selling GLC. In fact, the GLE itself incorporates two rather distinct bodystyles. Combined, the GLE and GLC account for nearly 6 out of every 10 Benz sales in Canada.
4. Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class: 4,665, up 23 per cent
If you’re looking for clear evidence of the Canadian new vehicle market’s shift to SUVs, the Mercedes-Benz GLC is happy to serve as a highlight. The GLC’s GLK predecessor was considered a successful vehicle during its first half-decade on the market, producing an average of around 5,500 annual sales and never straying below 5,000 units nor above 6,000. Now, in a severely supply-constrained market, the second-generation of Mercedes-Benz’s compact crossover generates 4,665 sales in only the first-half of the year.
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3. BMW X3: 4,910, up 57 per cent
In a market that, compared with 2021, is down by 100,000 sales through the first-half of the year, BMW’s two best-selling vehicles are soaring. The X5 is up 15 per cent to 2,922 units, and this smaller X3 has reported gains of 1,788 units between January and June. The numbers 3 and 5 have been important at BMW for decades, only instead of being prefaced by an X they were previously essential components for the brand when linked to a passenger car Series. The 3 Series and 5 Series combined for only 1,958 sales in the first-half, down 29 per cent from 2021 levels.
2. Lexus RX: 4,996, up 13 per cent
A powerhouse in North America’s premium lineup since the late 1990s, the Lexus RX was 2021’s top-selling premium brand utility vehicle and is certainly in with a shout of reclaiming the crown in 2022. Unlike its top challenger, RX sales are trending in the proper direction. Second-quarter volume rose 3 per cent after a 27-per-cent year-over-year improvement to kick off the year.
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1. Audi Q5: 5,107, down 10 per cent
Excluding an estimated 7,000+ sales of the Tesla Model 3 and its aforementioned sales reporting complexity — by which we mean Tesla doesn’t report — Canada’s 13 top-selling traditional premium brand vehicles are all utility vehicles. The Audi Q5 is the leader of that pack with more than 1,100 first-half sales over and above Audi’s entire passenger car lineup. Audi’s next-best-selling Q3 missed out on the top 5 by 637 sales.
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