BYD leads EV makers' strong March sales

BYD Co., the world's largest maker of new energy vehicles (NEVs), said Monday sales of its pure electric and plug-in hybrids surged last month.

The Shenzhen-based carmaker said that it sold 302,459 units in March, an increase of 147.30% from a month ago.

BYD said it sold a total of more than 620,000 cars in the first three months of the year and the March deliveries were the highest since the Hong Kong and Shenzhen-listed firm set an all-time high of deliveries of 341,043 units in December last year.

BYD has became the world’s first automaker to manufacture 700 million NEVs when it rolled off a Denza N7, its 7 millionth new energy vehicle, at its Jinan factory in eastern China’s Shandong Province on March 25.

This has been hailed as a groundbreaking accomplishment for BYD as it reached the production of 1 millionth NEV in May 2021 and rapidly multiplied this figure threefold within 18 months, then surpassed 5 million units in merely nine more months.

NEVs include pure electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles, although the latter play a minor role in China, with only a very small number of units sold in the country.

Backed by U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, BYD overtook Tesla Inc. in the final quarter of 2023 as the world's biggest seller of electric cars. 

Known for its affordable models and a more varied lineup, BYD delivered 3.02 million pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to customers globally in 2023, up 62.3% from the previous year. That includes 1.44 million plug-in hybrids, a model that Tesla Inc. does not offer.

Meanwhile, China’s three major electric-vehicle (EV) upstarts --- Li Auto, Nio and Xpeng –all reported a strong rebound in deliveries in March.

Beijing-based Li Auto, which reported a net income of 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) last year, making it the first of the three major EV startups to post an annual profit after vehicle shipments more than doubled, also said Monday that it sold 28,984 units to domestic customers in March, up 43.1% from a month ago. But the firm’s first-quarter deliveries of 80,400 cars still missed its target of delivering 100,000-103,000 vehicles to customers.

Shanghai-based Nio’s March deliveries jumped 45.9% from a month ago to 11,866 vehicles and the carmaker’s total sales of 30,053 vehicles for the first three months of the year were still shy of its earlier target of selling 31,000 and 33,000 units.

Xpeng’s sales of 9,026 units in March nearly doubled from a month ago and its first-quarter deliveries came in at 21,821 vehicles, meeting an early forecast of 21,000 to 22,500 units.

The strong sales figures come as competition has heated up in the world’s largest automotive and EV market, with a price war triggered by Tesla in January last year that has since spread to more than 40 brands.

Carmakers have resorted to massive sales promotions and dealer incentives to drive sales and stay competitive. The government has also introduced incentives, such as auto trade-ins and lower down payments on car loans, to bolster auto sales, which have emerged as one of the country’s growth drivers amid weak demand in Western countries.