NEV sales in China hit record high

Sales of new energy vehicles in China reached a new record of 571,000 in June. Compared to May 2022, sales of these passenger cars (BEV, PHEV and FCEV cumulatively) increased by 150,000.

The previous best value of 505,000 New Energy Vehicles dates back to December 2021 – so the mark was clearly surpassed. The best month so far in 2022 was March with 455,000 units.

Compared to June 2021 (234,000 NEVs), the 571,000 sales represent a 142.4 per cent increase, and compared to May 2022, it is still a 35.3 per cent increase, according to figures from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The association said the growth had exceeded expectations.

One of the reasons: The Chinese government has exempted New Energy Vehicles from purchase tax since June and reduced the purchase tax on cars with internal combustion engines of less than two litres from ten to five per cent to spur economic growth. So compared to May or the same month last year, there is some distortion.

In the current year, NEV sales total 2.467 million vehicles, up 122.9 per cent from the first half of 2021.

Of the 571,000 NEVs, 79 per cent were battery-electric vehicles – accounting for 452,000 units. In the case of plug-in hybrids, 119,000 vehicles were sold wholesale. This brought the NEV share of all new registrations in June to 26.1 per cent, up 10.8 percentage points from 15.3 per cent in June 2021.

The largest NEV manufacturer in June was again BYD, which had wholesale sales of 133,762 NEV cars, not including e-buses and e-trucks. Of these, BEVs accounted for the majority with 69,544 units, while BYD sold 64,218 plug-in hybrids.

In June, Tesla was again able to push ahead of BYD in the pure electric car segment – this was not the case in the previous months due to the lockdown-related closure of Giga Shanghai. Tesla set a new record with 78,906 electric cars sold from Chinese production. The Tesla figures from China usually have to be viewed in a differentiated manner, as the wholesale sales also include the vehicles that are exported from China. In June, however, this only applied to 968 vehicles – 77,938 Teslas therefore remained in China.

In the NEV statistics, by the way, SAIC ranks behind BYD with 91,297 cars sold – here, however, the distribution between BEV and PHEV is not known. Among the Chinese e-car start-ups, Xpeng, Neta and Leapmotor were able to consolidate their sales in the five-digit range; in June, Xpeng was ahead with 15,295 BEVs. Nio is also worth mentioning: the manufacturer had only ever managed four-digit monthly sales in the first five months. In June, it achieved a five-digit result for the first time in 2022 with 12,961 Nios.

With reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany.

cnevpost.com (CPCA), cnevpost.com (BYD), cnevpost.com (Tesla), cnevpost.com (SAIC), xiaopeng.com (Xpeng), cnevpost.com (Neta), cnevpost.com (Leapmotor), nio.com (Nio)