Around 525,000 New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) were sold in China last February, showing a 55.9% increase from the same month last year and 28.7% increase from January of 2023. BYD had the largest amount of NEVs and pure battery-electric cars sold. January’s sales slumped compared to December and the previous year’s January. However, February’s sales bounced back to 525,000 NEVs where 376,000 were BEVs and 149,000 were PHEVs. Fuel cell vehicles only sold 40 units in February 2023 in China. Although the recent results show promise, February’s numbers are still one of the lowest months in 2022. From June to December, there were at least 600,000 NEVs sold every month, and December recorded more than 800,000 vehicles sold. Additionally, Covid-19 lockdowns negatively impacted February 2022’s sales.
The distribution of NEVs shows a noteworthy trend. BEVs increased by 43.9% compared to last year’s same month, but plug-in hybrids almost doubled their result with a 98% increase. We will not elaborate on the fuel cell cars as a single promotion campaign in one city could impact nationwide at this low level. The higher unit numbers of BEVs and PHEVs drive types are not as susceptible to these one-off effects.
In February, 1.976 million vehicles were sold in China across all drive types, which was a 13.5% increase YoY and 19.8% YoY increase in January. New energy vehicles had a market share of 26% in February. BYD was the largest manufacturer in February with 191,664 NEV passenger cars sold where 90,639 were BEVs and 101,025 vehicles were plug-in hybrids. Approximately two-thirds of all 149,000 PHEVs came from BYD. Tesla sold 74,402 electric cars built in the Shanghai giga in February, with 40,479 of those vehicles exported, and 33,923 Teslas delivered to Chinese customers.
Nio, among the Chinese EV start-ups, sold the most BEVs in February, where the growing range of models resulted in 12,157 BEV sales. Neta achieved five-digit sales with 10,073 BEVs, while Xpeng fell to 6,010 BEVs in February 2023. The Geely brand Zeekr was able to sell 5,455 BEVs, which was an 87% increase compared to the same month last year. However, Leapmotor’s sales in February were 3,198 units below the same month of the previous year.
