Chinese battery and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will show off a model of its Han EV series at the 2020 Beijing auto show.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
BEIJING – Chinese carmaker BYD has sold more than twice as many battery-powered electric cars as start-up Nio, which was delivered in March.
BYD, backed by US billionaire Warren Buffett, announced on Tuesday that sales of its battery-powered passenger cars totaled 16,301 units last month.
That is more than double the Nio deliveries of 7,257 cars in March. Rival start-up Xpeng delivered even fewer vehicles last month, at 5,102 units. Both companies still exceed analysts’ expectations with those figures.
In the new energy vehicle category, which includes both hybrid and pure electric vehicles, BYD sold more than 23,000 units in March – bringing the total to 53,380 vehicles in the first quarter.
BYD also sold almost the same number of oil cars in the first quarter, namely 49,394 units.
Electric car sales are coming as the Chinese car market is recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the country hardest in the first quarter of 2020.
New motor vehicle registrations in the first quarter of this year climbed to a record high of 9.66 million, China’s Ministry of Public Security said Tuesday. New energy vehicles accounted for 466,000, or just over 6% of newly registered cars, the data showed.
The percentage of new energy cars across the country that are purely electric was 81.5% in the first quarter, about the same as the ratio in 2020, according to public safety data.
When it comes to the global market, Chinese electric car manufacturers still have a big gap to close.
Electric car market leader Tesla said last week that it delivered 184,800 cars worldwide in the first quarter. Although the US electric vehicle manufacturer did not disclose figures for China, the company noted in a press release, “We are encouraged by the strong reception of Model Y in China and are rapidly progressing to full production capacity.”
Elon Musk’s car company began supplying a China-made Model Y in January. According to the China Passenger Car Association, the car was the third best-selling new energy car in China in February, according to the China Passenger Car Association.
Tesla installed an annual production capacity of 200,000 Model Y units at its Shanghai plant in late January, according to an investor presentation.