Mercedes-Benz widens lead in U.S. luxury race

In 2019, Mercedes-Benz took a hit and its thee-year streak as the top luxury automaker in terms of sales in the U.S. was ended by its German archrival, BMW.
 

However, it looks like the Three-Pointed Star is looking to take the crown back from Bavaria with a commanding lead in the recent sales charts. According to Automotive News, quarterly sales reports from luxury brands have already come in, except for Jaguar Land Rover.
 
With the numbers in, Mercedes has widened its lead over BMW, picking up from a strong start in Q1 2020.
 
Back in April 2020, Mercedes reported 67,746 units sold in the U.S., excluding the vans, while BMW sold 59,455 vehicles. In Q2 2020, the Stuttgart-based automaker tallied another lead over BMW at 59,461 Mercedes units sold versus 50,957 BMW cars sold. This ballooned Mercedes’ lead over BMW by as much as 16,795 units at the halfway mark of the year.
 
To nobody’s surprise, Mercedes’ cash cow for Q2 2020 is its lineup of crossovers/SUVs. The GLE-Class led the charts with 9,500 units sold, followed closely by the GLC-Class with 9,461 deliveries. The E Class remains as the best-selling non-SUV/crossover model in the MB range with 6,857 units sold in Q2 2020.
 
Behind BMW, Lexus follows closely in Q2 2020 sales race with 50,456 units sold. Tesla ranks fourth with 36,800 units delivered, while Audi concludes the top five for the U.S. market 34,843 sold units.
 
As expected, sales numbers were down for the first half of 2020, primarily because of the coronavirus pandemic that struck and still wreaking havoc in the country.