Tesla is not only the world's largest, but also still the world's most profitable automaker, at least one it comes to the profit per vehicle metric.

Armed with sales and net margins data, Nikkei calculated the profit per car of the world's top 10 automakers, for the first time including Tesla's main EV rival BYD as well.

Tesla profit per vehicle

It turned out that Tesla is still earning an eye-watering amount, with an average of about $7,000 per vehicle sold.

That's way lower than the more than $10,000 that Tesla earned per car in the peak pricing days of 2021 and 2022, but still a number that other automakers can only dream of.

Even makers of premium luxury vehicles like Mercedes or BMW, which are traditionally some of the most profitable, fell behind during the 2023 fiscal year ending in March. Mercedes earned about $5300 of net profit per car, while BMW makes do with $4,400.

Still, when accounting for a tax benefit of about $5 billion, Tesla's profit per car falls to $4,064, lower than Mercedes or BMW, and a far cry from its peak pricing heydays.

Because of the EV sales slowdown, Tesla has been slashing prices relentlessly since last January, and it showed in the quarters since as a lot of profit destruction, but without spurring demand as much as Tesla expected.

The Cybertruck is beginning to add to the sales numbers, though, and Tesla has a goal to cut its costs by 20% before it releases the mass market AWD version next year. The Model 3 LR also just became eligible for the full $7,500 tax credit, so Tesla may return to growth in the profit per vehicle metric.

While Mercedes and BMW notched only a slight increase in profit per car sold, though, it was Toyota and Honda that did especially well.

Toyota's profit per vehicle was up the whopping 92% in the year ending March, as it rides on the wings of its popular hybrid offerings, trailed by Honda with 53%, and Hyundai with 27%.

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