Tesla registered 12,372 vehicles in South Korea in September, 36.4% more than a year earlier, and led the country’s import market for an eighth consecutive month, data from the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) showed on Tuesday.
The total was 19% above the 10,400 vehicles Tesla registered in August and compares with 9,069 in September 2025.
Tesla took 35.4% of an import market of 34,904 passenger cars, which grew 6.3% from a year earlier and 17.1% from August.
It was the only import brand above 10,000 registrations in the month, and it registered more cars than BMW and Mercedes-Benz combined.
BMW ranked second with 6,066 registrations and Mercedes-Benz third with 5,477, a combined 11,543.
BYD was fourth with 2,614 and Volvo fifth with 1,414.
“September new registrations of imported passenger cars rose from the previous month on the back of some brands securing supply, a range of new model launches and active marketing,” KAIDA Vice Chairman Jung Yoon-young said in the association’s statement, which did not name any brand.
Model Y L Leads
The six-seat Model Y L was the best-selling imported model of the month with 8,690 registrations, according to KAIDA.
That equals 24.9% of all imported passenger cars registered in September, or about one in four, and 70.2% of Tesla’s total.
The long-wheelbase variant, which is built in Shanghai and went on sale in South Korea in April, had registered 1,746 in August, 5,155 in June and 1,513 in May**, according to KAIDA’s statements for those months.**
The five-seat Model Y Premium ranked second among imported models with 2,467 registrations, down from 7,490 in August and from a peak of 9,328 in April.
Mercedes-Benz’s E 200 was third with 2,133.
The two Model Y figures are KAIDA’s own, but its statement lists only the top three models and gives no total for the Model Y or any figure for the Model 3.
Korean media that receive the association’s full tables put total Model Y registrations at 11,421, a number that could not be confirmed at source.
The two trims KAIDA names add up to 11,157, which is by itself more than any domestic passenger car sold in September, ahead of the Hyundai Grandeur at 8,898, the Hyundai Avante at 7,305 and the Kia Sorento at 6,957, according to Korean media tallies of the carmakers’ monthly sales reports.
EVs Pass Half of Imports
EVs accounted for 18,181 of September’s import registrations, or 52.1%, against 13,620 hybrids, or 39.0%. Petrol cars made up 2,857 and diesel 246.
Tesla alone represented 68% of the imported EVs registered in the month.
KAIDA’s breakdown by origin credits 12,604 registrations to US brands, which is Tesla’s 12,372 plus the 119 registrations the statement lists for Jeep, 63 for GMC, 43 for Cadillac, four for Lincoln and three for Ford.
That classification follows the nationality of the brand and not the factory, and most of the Teslas sold in South Korea are shipped from China.
9 Months at Double Last Year
Tesla’s registrations in the first nine months of 2026 reached 89,148, up 104.4% from 43,612 in the same period of 2025.
That is 31.9% of the 279,729 imported passenger cars registered from January to September, a market that grew 24.1% from 225,348.
The nine-month figure already exceeds the 59,916 vehicles Tesla registered in the whole of 2025, when it finished third behind BMW at 77,127 and Mercedes-Benz at 68,467.
Tesla needs a further 10,852 registrations in the fourth quarter to pass 100,000 for the year.
Its nine-month total already exceeds the highest full-year figure for any import brand in KAIDA data going back to 2015, the 80,976 vehicles Mercedes-Benz registered in 2022.
It registered 16,304 in the final three months of 2025.
The year started slowly, with 1,966 registrations in January and 7,868 in February, the month it took first place.
Tesla then became the first import brand to register more than 10,000 vehicles in a single month in South Korea, with 11,130 in March.
Its record remains April, at 13,190 registrations and a 38.8% share, followed by September, KAIDA’s monthly data show.
Every month since March has been above 10,000, with 10,866 in May, 11,119 in June, 10,237 in July and 10,400 in August.
First-half registrations of 56,139 were 30.5% of the import market.
Third-quarter registrations of 33,009 compare with the 486,532 global deliveries Tesla reported for the period, which fell 2.1%, although registrations and deliveries are counted differently.
Tesla’s September registrations also nearly doubled from a year earlier in the United Kingdom and reached their highest since 2022 in Germany.
Prices and Scrutiny
The September result came after Tesla raised Korean prices on five Model 3 and Model Y trims on July 1, by between 3 million won ($2,200) and 7 million won ($5,200).
The Model Y L now starts at 72.99 million won ($54,600), up from 64.99 million won at its launch in April, while the entry Model Y Premium was left at 49.99 million won ($37,400).
The growth has drawn political attention.
Seo Young-deuk, the head of Tesla Korea, is due to appear on Wednesday as a witness before the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, which called him over safety issues related to the company’s driver-assistance systems.
Tesla offers its FSD software in South Korea only on US-built vehicles, which are admitted under US safety standards through the two countries’ free trade agreement, and not on the Shanghai-built Model 3 and Model Y that make up most of its sales.
