In September, BYD set its fifth consecutive plug-in electric car sales record, further approaching a level of 300,000 units a month.
According to the company’s report, last month, BYD passenger plug-in car sales amounted to 286,903 (including 13,156 Denza premium EVs), which is 43 percent more than a year ago.
The overwhelming majority of BYD sales are in China, while exports stand for several percent of the total result.
It’s worth paying close attention not only to the consistently increasing volume but also to the growth rate, which is decreasing quite consistently. The scale is probably too big to continue the surge of 100, 200, or 300 percent year-over-year.
BYD has become the largest player in China, and this engine of growth is weakening. On the other hand, exports are in the relatively early stage with 28,039 sales last month – expanding by 262 percent year-over-year.
Another interesting thing is that the Chinese manufacturer appears to slowly turn more towards battery electric vehicles (BEV), which noted more than 150,000 for the very first time. Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) are no longer able to keep up with BEVs and the difference between the two categories expanded to over 15,000 units last month.
BYD passenger plug-in car sales last month (YOY change):
- BEVs: 151,193 (up 59%)
- PHEVs: 135,710 (up 28%)
- Total: 286,903 (up 43%)
BYD also sold 551 commercial electric vehicles for a total of 287,454 plug-in vehicles last month. Out of the total number, some 28,039 BYD plug-ins were exported (another monthly record).
So far this year, BYD sold over 2.07 million passenger plug-in electric cars, which is 76 percent more than a year ago. Both BEVs and PHEVs were above one million units, which is quite spectacular.
BYD passenger plug-in car sales year-to-date (YOY change):
- BEVs: 1,048,413 (up 80%)
- PHEVs: 1,021,842 (up 72%)
- Total: 2,070,255 (up 76%)
For reference, in 2022, BYD sold more than 1.85 million plug-in electric cars. The cumulative number of BYD plug-in electric cars is now more than 5.4 million units.
BYD’s 12-month sales already exceeded 2.75 million units, which means that it’s more and more probable that the company will achieve its goal of selling at least 3 million rechargeable cars in 2023.
The top two model families in BYD’s lineup were, once again, the Song family with 62,840 units (BEV + PHEV) and the Qin family with 45,072 (BEV + PHEV).
The third most popular nameplate last month was the stand-alone, all-electric BYD Seagull with 40,092, which with a starting price of about $10,275 (73,800 CNY) is also the least expensive BYD and one of the most affordable electric vehicles on the market. It will be interesting to see whether the Seagull will become #1 someday, as its volume quickly increases from just 1,500 in April to over 40,000 in just over five full months.
The all-electric BYD Dolphin, shown in the opening image, noted 32,927, while the popular BYD Yuan all-electric family (also known as Atto 3 outside China) had 32,856 units.