China October 2018 New Energy: BYD leads again, teases Toyota year-to-date

The new generation lifts BAIC EU-Series sales up 825%.

More than ever, with wholesales down 12% and retail sales down 14%, the last refuge of growth in China is now New Energy vehicles, a definition that that includes electric, hydrogen and PHEV models. Official CAAM data states New Energy Vehicles are up 51% to 138.000 sales in October including 111.000 EVs (+44.7%) and 27.000 PHEVs (+84.6%), and up a whopping 76% year-to-date to 860.000 wholesales, well on track to surpass the million annual units for he first time in history. Our dataset is slightly different as it also includes traditional hybrids. We are referring to retail sales here including imports as these are much more detailed with sales by New Energy variant available. As such, New Energy models included in this study see their sales soar 67% year-on-year in September to 90.335, leading to a year-to-date total of 693.408.

BYD (+136%) is the best-selling New Energy brand in China for the 4th time in the past 5 months with over 22.000 sales or 24.4% share, almost 10.000 units above Toyota (+59%) accounting for 14.2% share. BYD is now just 4.000 sales below Toyota year-to-date and should surpass the Japanese carmaker next month.  BAIC BJEV (+4%), Geely (+343%) and Roewe (+72%) round up a Top 5 which accounting for 60% of the New Energy market. BMW (+818%), GAC Trumpchi (+782%) and Lexus (+561%) post the largest gains in the remainder of the Top 10. Model-wise, the Toyota Corolla Hybrid (+45%) remains on top and is with the Levin Hybrid (+14%) at #5 the only foreigner in the Top 5. The BYD Tang EV (+422%), Yuan EV and e5 (+140%) complete the Top 4, with the Geely Emgrand EC7 PHEV (+157%), BAIC EU-Series (+825%) and EX-Series (+5596%) posting extravagant gains. The Nio ES8 is down 9% on last month to 1.602 sales and the Weltmeister EX5 is now into 3-digit figures at 113.

Previous month: China September 2018 New Energy: BYD leads, Weltmeister lands

Full October 2018 Top 55 brands and Top 110 models below.