German Automakers Dominate #NewCar Instagram Posts In US

Wanting to show off your new ride is nothing out of the ordinary, but it seems certain owners do it way more often than others.

Thanks to an in-depth study conducted by AutoNation, we now have a better understanding of which car brands became the focus of the popular #Newcar hashtag used on Instagram, but also how these statistics are distributed across all States and even which automakers received the most “likes”.

In order to check out their methodology but also their sources, feel free to view the full study by clicking here. The gist of it however is that 100,000 Instagram posts with the hashtag #Newcar (ran through Google Cloud Vision API), as well as geotagged posts, revealed that people living in the US like German premium cars the most when it comes to new purchases being shown off on social media.

As you can see from the graph below, BMW is running away with the ‘Most Popular #Newcar’ crown, ahead of Mercedes-Benz. Audi is also in the top 10 but trailing brands such as Nissan, Chevy, Toyota and Jeep, the latter sitting comfortably at number three.

What really surprises us is to find Tesla dead last. Sure, they might not move as many cars as their competitors, but their customers are generally younger and perhaps more social media savvy. One would think they’d brag about their Model S or Model X more often – sort of like how Eva Longoria reacted after getting her Model X.

After filtering vehicle popularity by state, BMW, the overall winners, only came out on top in five states, with all five being situated in the Northeast.

Mercedes, on the other hand, claimed victory in 11 states, making them the second-most popular brand (by state), trailing only Jeep that won a massive 17 states. Automakers such as Subaru and Lamborghini were “one-state wonders” (as were Nissan, Dodge and VW), claiming Alaska and North Carolina respectively.

When it came to finding out which brands averaged the most likes per #newcar hashtag, the outright winner was Lamborghini, followed by Aston Martin, Maserati and Ferrari. In other words, the exotics won this time, but Mercedes, BMW and Audi still cracked the top 10, as did Porsche, Lexus and Infiniti – so basically just premium brands across the board.

As for a final surprise, the five states where people use #newcar the most turned out to be Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, Delaware and Montana. Who knew?