6 luxury car brands to watch in 2024

2023 was a healthy year for the auto industry, and even with incentives returning and dealer lots filling up, there's plenty to like about the market if you build luxury automobiles, and we expect 2024 to be more of the same, which makes luxury-segment rivalries all the more interesting. Top luxury car brand rivalries? Well, that sounds downright uncivilized. But we know better, don't we? And when every quarterly sales update is an opportunity to remind somebody else that they bought the wrong status symbol, well, who can resist? Certainly not the diehard customers who fly their favorite brands' banners high.

• Read more: Auto sales: Industry records best year since 2019

• Read more: 2023 auto sales and 2024 preview: Ford Bronco vs. Jeep Wrangler

This is a tricky segment to define, but essentially, we're looking at luxury car brands with depth to their portfolios and dealerships that exist to attract real-world customers. The Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and McLarens of the world are luxury cars, certainly, but we're more concerned with brands that have a bit more mass appeal — manufacturers who treat supply constraints as fiascos rather than features. If you disagree with our selections, feel free to let us know in the comments.

And since we're mostly concerned with finishing order, the luxury brands and totals featured here may change as new data come in throughout 2024. Due to the wild swings of the past several years, we're treating 2023 as the baseline by which we'll measure sales performance. And rather than rank brands vs. their finishing order in 2022, when supply-chain and inflationary issues still played havoc with sales figures, we're starting 2024 off with a clean slate.

The mainstream luxury segment is always a dogfight, but with their varied approaches to electrification all of the major luxury brands are in the midst of reshaping the premium landscape. Who is doing it right? Well, according to U.S. shoppers, the usual suspects are up to their old tricks. Here are the numbers and why they matter.

The numbers from 2023

• BMW - 362,244

• Lexus - 320,249

• Mercedes-Benz - 282,229*

• Audi - 228,550

• Cadillac - 147,214

• Acura - 145,655

• Volvo - 128,701

• Lincoln - 81,818

• Porsche - 75,415

• Jaguar-Land Rover - 73,139

• Genesis - 69,175

• Infiniti - 64,699

• Alfa Romeo - 10,898

• Maserati - 6,580

*With Mercedes-Benz Vans: 351,746

Why they matter