Tesla Japan said on 14 October 2026 that the Model Y was the best-selling foreign-brand model in Japan in September, repeating a claim it made for May and for the first half of the year. The footnote on its graphic says the registration counts are Tesla Japan's own research, and Tesla publishes no number. The Japan Automobile Importers Association (JAIA) does publish one, a few days earlier and from a different angle, and it says much the same thing: the line Tesla sits in more than doubled, and only Mercedes-Benz registered more foreign-brand cars.
What the importers' table shows
Tesla is not a JAIA member and does not report to it, so its cars are counted in an "Others" line alongside a handful of small brands. Touch Lab, which has tracked the series since 2014, treats that line as a Tesla proxy because Tesla is understood to account for most of it.
In JAIA's preliminary September release, dated 6 October, the Others line reached 3,348 passenger cars, against 1,471 a year earlier. The entire foreign-brand passenger market grew by 961 cars, to 27,057. The Others line grew by 1,877 on its own, so without it foreign brands would have registered fewer cars than in September 2025.
| Foreign brand, passenger cars | September 2026 | Change on year | January to September |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercedes-Benz | 5,983 | +8.8% | 36,263 |
| Others (incl. Tesla) | 3,348 | +127.6% | 20,216 |
| Volkswagen | 3,078 | +9.0% | 20,793 |
| BMW | 3,030 | −22.9% | 21,960 |
| Audi | 2,642 | −2.0% | 15,912 |
| Mini | 1,952 | −2.6% | 13,114 |
| BYD | 378 | −52.7% | 3,263 |
Source: JAIA, preliminary new registrations of foreign-brand passenger cars, September 2026.
Over nine months the Others line stands at 20,216 cars, up 150.6% on the same period of 2025 and almost double the 10,643 it recorded in the whole of last year. It ranks fourth for the year, 577 cars behind Volkswagen on JAIA's figures. Touch Lab's tally puts July to September at 8,014 cars against 3,471 a year earlier, a record quarter and 980 above April to June.
Why the caveat matters
Tesla delivers in waves, so the last month of a quarter is always its strongest, and September is the last month of the third quarter. The same caveat applied when the Model Y topped Taiwan's whole market in September. June's 3,997 cars, the highest single month in the series, coincided with the 30 June deadline of a three-year free-charging campaign, according to Touch Lab. The nine-month total is the sturdier number.
The Model Y claim itself rests on Tesla's count. Drive Tesla, citing JATO Dynamics registration data, reported the Model Y as the best-selling foreign-brand model for May and for the first half of 2026, with about 48% of foreign-brand electric registrations in the half. The JAIA table is consistent with the September claim rather than proof of it: Mercedes-Benz's 5,983 cars are spread across a dozen model lines, and no other foreign brand registered more cars in total than the line Tesla dominates.
Where this fits
Tesla sold just over 10,000 cars in Japan in 2025, a record, and is expanding its delivery and service network this year with the stated aim of becoming the country's largest import brand. In Tokyo, stacked national and metropolitan subsidies take the Model Y's effective price to about 3.62 million yen. BYD, the other importer pushing electric cars in Japan, fell 52.7% in September to 378 passenger cars, although it is still up 12.6% for the year.
All of this sits inside a quarter in which Tesla's global deliveries fell 2.1% to 486,532. Japan is one of the few markets where the brand is growing by triple digits, from a base that remains small in a market of more than four million new cars a year.