China July 2016

Geely Dorsett EV

BYD Qin Reaches Second Place

The Chinese market had some 34.000 new EV's zooming the streets last month, a 188% increase over the same month last year, in-line with the annual growth rate, with the EV market share surpassing the 1% barrier, to 1.1%.

At this rhythm, the Chinese EV market is headed to some 400.000 units and 1.5% market share by December, 31^st, which not only would beat North America (USA+Canada+Mexico) and Europe as major selling markets, both in volume and market share, but would also make it the largest one fleet wise, with nearly 700.000 units in the streets.

All this while 96% of the market belongs to domestic brands. For the record, of the 4% left for foreign brands, 2% belong to Tesla, 1% to Porsche and remaining 1% is for the remaining auto makers…

Here’s July Top 5 Best Selling models individual performance:

#1 - BYD Tang: The 500 hp Chinese Cayenne continues its success story in the EV market, but deliveries dropped 14% regarding the previous month, to 3.032 units, blame it on productions constraints or is the BYD flagship finding its cruise speed around the 3.000-something units per month?

#2 - BYD Qin: The 300 hp PHEV sedan has registered 2.756 units, continuing on its growing sales trend for the sixth time in a row, will BYD be able to provide enough units to beat the Qin all-time record (4.030 units, July ’15) by September?

#3 – Zhidou D2 EV: This tiny two-seater is the sole representative in the Top 5 of a class of cheap city cars that once were the most popular kind of EV’s in China, now things have moved on, with larger, more sophisticated models taking over. Still, there is space for these urban dwellers and the Zotye D2 was the Best Seller of the class, with 2.209 units.

#4 - BYD Qin EV300: An all-electric offshoot of the most common plug-in in China, the 218 hp, 300 kms range BEV has registered 2.075 units, continuing on this growing sales trend, will it overcome its PHEV sibling soon?

This Audi A4-sized model goes from 0 to 100 kms in 7.9 seconds and costs in China between US$40.000 to US$48.000, before incentives.

#5 - SAIC Roewe e550: Shangai-based SAIC expects to replicate the BYD Qin success with this one, the e550, the plug-in hybrid version of its 550 ICE Best Seller. In July, the e550 seems to have plateaued at the 2.000-something units per month, with 2.065 units, as SAIC is now concentrating efforts in ramping up production of its larger relative, the e950 full-size barge car.

Year-to-Date Ranking

In the podium positions, the BYD Qin switched positions with the BAIC E-Series and reached the Second Position, while the Roewe e550 climbed yet another position to Fourth.

Worthy mentions to the Chery eQ, registering 1.839 units, a year best performance, jumping to #6, while three models reached new highs: The Geely Dorsett EV registered 1.556 units in July, climbing to #9, the BYD e5 sedan delivered 1.358 units, reaching #10 (Fourth BYD in the Top 10) and the Zotye E200 city car climbed to #15, with 1.603 units.

Just missing out on this Top 20 by less than 200 units, the BAIC EX200 (1.502 units in July) is in the intersection of the two fastest growing trends in China, SUV’s and EV’s, so it is safe to say that this model will join the Top 20 (10?) soon.

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, BYD is the leader with 33% market share, but has lost an additional 2% share last month, as the market has been growing faster than the Xi’an-based company.

In Second Place we have BAIC (12%), followed by SAIC Roewe (8%, up 1%) in Third, switching positions with the #4 JAC, which dropped 1%, to 7%.

Finally, looking at the breakdown between BEV’s and PHEV’s, unlike other markets where plug-in hybrids are winning the upper hand, all-electric cars just continue improving its share, now at 68%, up 1% regarding last month, improving by the same 1% the result they had by the end of 2015.

Pl	China	July	YTD	%
1	BYD Tang	3.032	22.166	14
2	BYD Qin	2.756	12.160	8
3	BAIC E-Series EV	1.356	11.333	8
4	SAIC Roewe e550	2.065	10.776	7
5 6 7 8	BYD e6 Chery eQ JAC i EV 4 JMC E100	911 1.839 378 520	10.137 7.176 6.060 5.747	6 4 4 4
9	Geely Dorsett EV	1.556	5.351	3
10	BYD e5	1.358	5.108	3
11	Kandi K17 Cyclone	969	4.966	3
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	BAIC EU260 Zhidou D2 EV Zotye Cloud EV Zotye E200 BYD Qin EV300 Changan Eado EV Lifan 330 EV Tesla Model S Kandi K10 EV	1.135 2.209 420 1.603 2.075 116 682 833 682	4.746 4.643 4.533 3.913 3.800 3.720 3.682 3.287 2.482	3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2
	TOTAL Market	33.976	161.216	100

Editor’s note: As you might have noticed, there were some readjustments to the ranking, motivated by new brands (Lifan) being on the radar and by the breakdown of models that previously were together, eg Kandi K-Series or JAC I EV series.

Post also published on EV Obsession and CleanTechnica.