Ford Mustang Mach-E Gains Sales Momentum In February, Eats Away At Tesla’s Market Share

Tesla's still dominant, but the slide appears to be starting - will it continue?

Ford Mustang Mach-E Gains Sales Momentum In February, Eating Away At Tesla's Market Share
(Photos: Ford)

The Mustang Mach-E is gaining some ground as the February figures roll in.

As the month’s sales reports roll in — including Ford, which is reporting monthly again — how did some hot new models fare? More specifically, did the all-new 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E absolutely crush Tesla’s dominance in the marketplace?

I think you know the answer to that already. However, it is at least a minor win for Ford, and a sign that Tesla does need to watch its six over the coming months as new rivals emerge on the battlefield.

Here’s the headline figure: Ford sold 3,739 Mustang Mach-Es last month. I’ll grant you that figure does not look terribly impressive on its face, but that is a marked improvement over January’s sluggish start. So far in 2021, Ford’s shifted just shy of 4,000 units. There’s a strong possibility that number could have been higher, were it not for the delays preventing Ford actually getting vehicles into customers’ driveways. Given Tesla’s meteoric rise over the past few years, it’ll take a massive surge for Ford to actually overtake Tesla on straight sales figures. When it comes to market share, though, the picture looks a little bit different.

When it comes to capturing the lightning that made Tesla explosively popular, Ford still has an uphill battle. That said, the automaker did chip away at Tesla’s marketshare, as Roadshow points out in a recent report. According to Morgan Stanley’s latest Autos & Shared Mobility Research report for February, Tesla’s market share noticeably dropped.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Gains Sales Momentum In February, Eating Away At Tesla's Market Share
Despite some purists’ disdain at calling it a “Mustang”, the Mach-E is currying favor with those willing to give electric cars (and Ford’s attempt specifically) a chance.

Market share shuffles in Ford’s favor

In February of last year, Tesla commanded 81% of the electric car market. That’s why I can only ever use the word “dominant” to describe their position, but that may shift a bit in the coming months. In February 2021, Tesla’s share fell to 69%, according to Morgan Stanley’s numbers. They estimate Tesla shifted 21,550 vehicles, compared to 9,527 among all other EV models. And of that remaining chunk, Ford grabbed half.

What’s clear, then, is that Ford did manage to woo some buyers away from, say, a Model Y or Model 3. Since the EV titan still grasped two-thirds of the market in the past month, it’s definitely not time for Tesla to panic. That said, more competition is usually a net positive for the consumer, and more options arriving in the next few months and years means the company will have to stay on its toes to maintain its edge. If Tesla’s share keeps trending downward, they may ultimately lose that “dominant” status they’ve held for years.

Overall, as Roadshow mentions, February was a solid month for electric car sales. That figure jumped 34% from this point last year. Tesla itself gained 5.4%, while other non-Tesla EV brands more than doubled their sales from this point in 2020.