Nearly all brands see deliveries increase in October, but absolutely nobody can keep pace with BYD.
As predicted, October’s NEV (new energy vehicle) sales in China hit new heights almost across the board, but as ever, it was BYD leading the way and by quite some margin, blasting straight past the half a million deliveries threshold for a single month.
Even on BEV deliveries alone, BYD would still have sold almost double the second placed brand with 189,600 fully electric cars delivered, compared to 310,900 plug-in hybrid units, an increase of 66.2% year-on-year. Staggering figures.
Taking a similar leap in sales and a firm grasp of the second step of the podium, SGMW, otherwise known as Wuling and Baojun, had a month to remember. Wuling alone claimed 94,995 deliveries in October, just before the iconic first-generation Hongguang gets set to depart in favour of a larger, 5-door version.
The tiny four-seater looks to be going out with a bang, returning to its heyday sales levels with 42,165 units delivered in October alone, a very impressive number.
Taking the third step on the podium, it’s Chery, China’s largest exporter of cars celebrating the export of its one millionth Tiggo 7. Their figure of 71,330 units delivered in October was a massive increase over the 58,000 of September, though it’s not clear what model might have spurred on such an improvement.
Tesla sales eventually came in at 68,280, down more than 22% on September in a month where sales generally should be much higher. Whether people are waiting around for the updated Model Y, or whether they’re starting to realise the excellent standard of the homegrown EVs, is the big question.
Next up is Geely, the Hangzhou-based giant delivering 63,681 of its own brand models in October, including models from the Star and Galaxy line-ups. We’ve separated their stablemates Lynk & Co and Zeekr into their own space. Geely would be third on the podium with almost 110,000 sales if they were included.
Li Auto continues to lead the battle of the large extended range SUVs, heading off AITO yet again whose M7 SUV is, by the way, one of the top 10 best-selling electrified vehicles on the planet. A slight drop for Li this month to 51,443 deliveries but with no new models in the line-up.
HIMA, the Huawei Intelligent Mobility Alliance, which consists of the AITO, Luxeed, and Stellato brands, sit ready to pounce but still a way off Li Auto. Their 41,643 deliveries maybe not the jump we’d expected given the new Luxeed R7 has had a stellar launch performance, but perhaps they need to ramp up deliveries in much the way they did with the S7.
GAC AION, who recently announced their entry into the Australian market, saw a more than 10% increase in sales over September, climbing above 40,000 units again thanks to the AION V coming on song. The RT saloon is next up, plus a new compact hatch which we revealed here.
Leapmotor continued to live up to their name in October, taking a new record high of 38,177 units, 109.7% up on the same month last year, and over 4,500 units more than the month prior, and that’s before the B10 SUV has even begun sales.
GWM saw moderate gains with 32,039 deliveries of their Haval, Wey, Tank and Ora brands. There’s not much in the way of electrification going on at Great Wall outside of Ora, the focus being on PHEVs for the most part.
Deepal and Zeekr both had standout Octobers as well, Deepal sales up almost 20% in October to 27,862 units, and with the S05 about to hit the stores, there could be more to come from Deepal in the months ahead.
Zeekr meanwhile celebrated the launch of the MIX, our review of which you can see here, with new record sales of 25,049, a near 4,000 increase in sales on September. MIX might add more to that, though we’ve not heard much there, while the 7X has seen 18,000 units delivered already. Zeekr X now starts at 135,000 RMB, suggesting there’s a shortage of sales for the brand’s baby.
Changan’s own brand NEVs hit around 24,000 units in October, a solid result. Combined with AVATR and Qiyuan sales, they topped 85,000 last month, but as with Zeekr, we’ve broken them out into separate entities.
XPeng dropped behind Zeekr in October but moved further ahead of NIO with a new record monthly high of 23,917, not as much as we’d been expecting. Of course the new XPeng P7+, which we reviewed here, will see deliveries begin in November so it should add a hefty chunk to that figure after receiving 30,000 deposits within 2 hours of going on sale.
NIO dropped back a little in October despite Onvo L60 sales getting underway. Total sales of 20,976 units included 4,319 for Onvo, suggesting that there might be a bit of brand cannibalisation coming through, likely on EC6 and EC7 models, since both Onvo and Nio can battery swap. They’ll be hoping to rectify that in November.
Xiaomi’s rise and rise continues, the brand hitting 20,000 deliveries of their one model, the SU7, just seven months after launch. At this rate, they’ll hit their 100,000 annual target this month, and top 120,000 in December. Their stunning SU7 Ultra was revealed this week. You can read about that here.
Lynk & Co new energy vehicle sales just missed out on the 20k mark at 19,992 in October. This is likely an increase on September where we mistakenly reported total sales for Lynk & Co. Consequently, they’re up in October too by more than 20% on last month.
Qiyuan sales also leapt last month, up from under 12,000 to 18,000 this month, a nearly 50% increase. The new E07 pick-up has started sales but there’s not much else new, they just seem to have gotten their act together.
SAIC VW’s ID models also improved their sales marginally in October, but at 14,286 they’re not much to write home about, VW desperately needing some improved models in the next 12 months to stay relevant.
Arcfox and Voyah both saw marginal gains in October, Arcfox climbing above the 11,000 units mark, while Voyah added a couple more hundred. We’re still waiting on figures from Neta and Yipai, which isn’t necessarily a great sign for Neta who appear to be struggling.
AVATR and IM, however, both had great months in October. AVATR saw sales of their new EREV and BEV 07 models hit the ground running, more than doubling their tally from the previous month to top 10,000 units for the first time at 10,056. IM similarly, recovered from a disastrous September to post 10,001 deliveries, thanks in no small part to the revised and much improved LS6.
Sales of Dongfeng’s compact Nammi brand grew by around 14% to 7,500 units, a decent figure ahead of expected exports sales which could begin in 2025. And bringing up the rear is Jiyue. It was a new record month for them with 3,107 sales, but they’ll be desperately hoping to improve that number quickly.
We’ll update the remaining figures when we get them, but for now that’s a rap on October’s NEV sales. November promises to be even more impressive, so let’s see if it delivers.
