China New Energy Full Year 2022: Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, Tesla Model Y and BYD impress

The Wuling Hongguang Mini EV remains the best-selling EV in China in 2022.

Discover over 40 years of Chinese Historical Data here.

In 2022, sales of New Energy models almost double in China to 6,887,000 units (+93.4%), holding a 25.6% market share vs. 13.5% a year ago. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) are up 81.6% to 5,365,000 units and Plug In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) soar 150% to 1,518,000. Various trends are at play when looking at the NEV models ranking for 2022 (based on retail sales of locally produced and imported vehicles). 

The Wuling Hongguang MINI EV (+5.1%) keeps the overall lead and brilliantly crosses the 400,000 annual sales milestone. It now has a long list of competitors further down the charts, including the Chery eQ1 (+21.6%) ranking at #14, the Chery QQ Ice Cream (+1802.1%) ending its first full year of sales at #17, the Changan Lumin landing directly at #21, the Leapmotor T03 (+53.7%) at #22 and the Roewe Clever (-11.9%) at #34.

The Tesla Model Y (+97.1%) stays in 2nd place even tough it doubles its year-ago volume whereas the Tesla Model 3 (-17.2%) drops from #3 to #7 overall. Here too a long litany of Chinese manufacturers are out to beat Tesla. Among them, the Xpeng P7 (-2%) loses ground and falls from #11 in 2021 to #23 this year. NIO has the ES6 (+2.9%) down 17 spots to #33, the ET7 landing at #52, the EC6 (-42.4%) down 37 ranks to #60, the ES7 arriving at #67 and the ES8 (-31.7%) down 33 spots to #69.

BYD shows off its implacable domination in the segment and has seven nameplates in the Top 10. The Song Plus DM-i (+327.3%) is up seven ranks on 2021 to third place ahead of the Dolphin (+804.1%), Qin Plus DM-i (+85.1%) and the new Yuan Plus, labelled Atto 3 in export markets. The Han EV (+35.4%), Qin Plus EV (+156.7%) and Tang DM (+108%) also manage a spot in the New Energy Top 10.

Full Year 2022 Top 150 New Energy models vs. Full Year 2021 figures below.