China witnessed electric vehicle industry players’ tremendous end-of-year sales push in the 51st week of the year, December 18 to 24, 2023.
According to Cars News China, Chinese NEV giant BYD reported a notable growth of 24%, while American pioneer Tesla only grew by 1%. Nio was among the brands with the highest growth at 21%, while XPeng and Denza dropped by approximately 20%.
Rankings (Dec 18-24)
Li Auto’s weekly data provides us with an idea of the Chinese NEV industry’s weekly insurance registrations, including battery-powered (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), electric range extenders (EREVs), and fuel cell hydrogen (FCEVs).
Presented below is the EV sales leaderboard from December 18-24, 2023, in China:
| Brands | Sales |
| BYD | 63,900 |
| Tesla | 18,500 |
| Wuling | 13,600 |
| Li Auto** | 12,100 |
| GAC Aion | 8,600 |
| Changan* | 6,800 |
| Volkswagen | 6,800 |
| Aito | 6,000 |
| Leapmotor* | 4,200 |
| Nio | 4,100 |
| Xpeng | 3,900 |
Sales breakdown: BYD and Tesla
As you can see in the table presented above, BYD led the sales leaderboard with 63,900 NEVs last week. The Musk-led company trailed far behind the Chinese rival with 18,500 unit sales.
However, BYD’s significant lead is unsurprising, considering its wide range of NEV offerings. In contrast, Tesla only sells all-electric vehicle models.
BYD
BYD’s 63,900 NEV sales indicate a 23.60% growth from the prior week. Remarkably, it enabled the Chinese NEV giant to register about 180,000 NEVs from December 1-24, 2023.
However, it is still short of 320,000 units to reach its annual sales target of 3 million globally. In the January-November period, it recorded a total sales of 2,683,374 cars worldwide. China accounted for approximately 90% of that sales, while 10% were exported.
Here are the sales breakdown of BYD’s key models:
| Models | Sales | Week on Week (WoW) Change |
| Song Plus | 10,400 | +22% |
| Qin Plus | 9,400 | +25% |
| Seagull | 8,700 | +18% |
| Dophin | 6,200 | +20% |
| Yuan Plus (Atto 3) | 6,200 | +10% |
| Han | 4,100 | +19% |
| Seal | 2,700 | +14% |
| Song L | 770 |
Meanwhile, here is the BYD sub-brand sales breakdown:
| Models | Sales | Week on Week (WoW) Change |
| Fang Cheng Bao Bao 5 (Leopard 5) | 1,300 | +32.7 WoW |
| YangWang U8 | 400 | +8.1% |
Tesla
As mentioned, Tesla’s sales in the Chinese NEV market reached 18,500 units from December 18 to 24. It only demonstrated a slight increase of 1.09% from the prior week’s record of 18,300 units. This month to date, it already sold 60,200 BEVs in the local market.
In November alone, its sales reached 82,432 units in China. Of that total, 65,504 units went to the local customers, while Tesla exported the 16,928 units from Giga Shanghai.
Here are the sales breakdown of Tesla’s BEV products in China:
| Models | Sales | Week on Week (WoW) Change |
| Tesla Model Y | 14,400 | 0% |
| Tesla Model 3 | 3,800 | +26.2% |
Tesla China still has five days to deliver as many EVs as possible to Chinese customers to hit its annual global sales target of 1.8 million units. The American EV giant even revamped the Model 3 and the Model Y in the local market to attract more customers before the year ends, as noted by Teslarati. The Giga Shanghai also plays a crucial role in Tesla’s efforts to hit its sales target, considering its annual production output of 950,000+ units.
