What are the world's best selling EVs, by which I don't mean, what models are they,
but what are they?
I wanted to go through a table that I recently saw on CleanTechnica, it shows the world's
plugin vehicle sales for January 2022.
I thought this table was going to be a way to help me illustrate the discrepancy between
sales that matter and statistics, when it comes to the other EVs.
Just to be clear, it does say plugin sales,
so that includes plugin hybrids.
Yes, when you say EVs, then you are allowed to include hybrids, its a marketing thing,
to allow Chinese statistics to appear bigger than they really are.
They also like to rename things to be even more clever, such as NEVs, which again is
just another stupid acronym to hide your disappointing BEV sales.
New energy vehicles, which is actually new energy vehicles like electric cars, combined
with old energy vehicles like hybrids.
But it says new in the name, to make you think otherwise.
Although not to be confused with ARK's idea of the direction Tesla should be headed, in
neighborhood EVs, also NEV acronym.
Yes BEV, that's what Tesla makes, engineless cars, thats a big difference, and all that
matters, it's just that statistics look better when we group them.
Now we have the almighty Model Y at the top
of the list, no surprise there.
Well actually a little surprise, as it says only 32,000 units for January, which does
seem a bit low, I am pretty sure Shanghai alone made that may Model Ys in January.
This probably sounds beyond fanboy saying this, but just think about it, over 300,000
deliveries for the quarter, 1/3 of that for a month would be 100,000.
Only 32,000 Model Ys?
It doesn't add up.
But, just to sound extra fanboy, the other cars sales do sound about right.
Anyway as a result, I am not sure as to the accuracy of some of these figures, so we will
just be analyzing on an indicative level here, and wont hold too much value to the specific
numbers.
Anyway, Tesla Model Y number one.
We will also go through what each of these top selling EVs actually are, and how they
compare with Tesla.
Ahh, and my favorite EV number 2, the Wuling
Deathtrap.
And it's coming in second with 26,000 units, which isn't too far off the Model Y.
Of course this is just an electric scooter with a shell, and not overly advanced on the
production line.
Which meant that it was able to hit volume production.
Yes, the only other EV to hit volume production, not only that, it did it at a profit.
GM even owns a share in it, and I think they receive something like $50 profit per vehicle
sold.
Anyway, it's a very low cost EV that is catered to its market, although it is starting to
lose market share.
It does usually sell more units than this in a month, January was particularly low.
Of course it still wouldn't come in as high as a Model Y's real sales numbers.
Next up with have a BYD, but this is one of
their hybrid models, and that hasn't even reached volume production.
BYD can't even hit volume production on their hybrids, let alone their BEVs.
But they take up the 3 and 4 spots, before the Model 3.
So Model 3 was actually the third spot, as like I said the industry likes to arbitrarily
group PHEVs and BEVs, but in reality we should ignore the PHEVs and put the Model 3 in the
3rd spot, with 15,000 units.
15,000 units?
Again this is a strange number, it would take Model 3 and Y sales to 48,000 units, then
perhaps 53,000 total if you include S and X.
Tesla must have sold close to double that, to align with a 300,000 quarter.
Anyway, perhaps they just took the China production numbers or something.
I have corrected the graph somewhat to just illustrate a more indicative lead as to where
Tesla's production really is, and I thought I would also edit the Wuling to, to a more
average level of production, just to give you a better idea to truly compare the contrast
between Tesla and the rest.
I also compared the rest of the EV sales, and they are seemed to be about where they
should be.
Then another meaningless hybrid from Li autos, if it has an engine, then it's not important.
Alright, so finally after all that, we get
to the first BEV, after Tesla, that can legally be sold in developed markets, and it's...
Volkswagen, with the ID4.
The ID4 does undercut Tesla on price, but it's a lot more basic than a Model Y, and
a lot less of a vehicle, and they lose money on them.
I am not sure the Volkswagen brand, has quite the prestige to be able to be making EVs,
to get away with the price tag.
I think VW is a brand that probably should have used LFP batteries, to save cost.
The VW group have Audi as a brand though, which they can use as a more mainstream EV
brand.
Consumers see more value in a more luxurious brand, and can thus justify a higher price
tag.
On the other hand, Europe will need low cost EVs as well, and they will make it hard for
the Chinese, so perhaps VW can try and tap into that lower cost EV segment as the legacy
auto, they have even revealed a compact EV.
Anyway, there you go, the next closest to volume production after Tesla for BEVs that
are legal for sale in developed nations, is Volkswagen.
Then the first BYD BEV to enter the top 20
is the BYD Dolphin.
Now bear in mind this is a very low cost EV, starting at something like around $16,000.
However, despite such a low cost, and priced to the mass market, they are still only producing
under half volume production, and haven't gotten any further for months.
This is for a very basic small vehicle, yet still seem to struggle just as much as their
larger vehicles, to achieve volume production.
This would make it more difficult to produce a profit from this model, as it is selling
for a much lower cost with similar overheads to their larger vehicles.
I don't know why they went for such a cheap vehicle, when the market has not yet saturated
on more expensive versions of vehicle first.
Going for a lower priced vehicle would either mean your demand is so low you have to offer
lower cost models, to reach a larger market, which I don't think it is likely with BYD.
Or it's just a bad move, tapping a market where there is such little profit, or none,
especially if you still can't mass produce.
And BYD's larger Han is pretty much doing the same numbers too, which is what I am saying,
they could have made another model that is that price point too, where there is more
profit available.
Next we have the Cherry, which you may not
have heard of, who have been doing well and growing lately, at least with percentages
and statistics.
Well they are a competitor to the Wuling.
This is the Cherry QQ Ice Cream Deathtrap.
But you get a larger battery than the Wuling for a similar price, so it has been eating
the Wuling's market share.
It has a 20 kWh battery and sells for under $5,000.
Then the changan benni ev, which is about $10,000 with a 32 kWh battery, then a few
others, and then we don't get to the next BYD BEV until we are at 7,000 units a month.
And one Xpeng makes it in the top 20 too.
NIO didn't crack the top 20, their growth seems to be rather limited also.
Same for Polestar, not in the top 20.
So ok, BYD are nearly at 50% of volume production,
for some cars, well two of their BEV lines.
Then the next closest is almost only 1/4 the way.
This is the same for all of them, the Chinese are no better than legacy.
In fact legacy are better than the Chinese according to these numbers.
It was like Herbert Diess talking about the fact that a tesla moves off the production
line 3 times faster than an ID3.
And probably 5 times faster in Texas, when that's ramped.
That's Elon's legendary BEV volume production.
But we should give VW some credit, as it is the only EV in the top 20 that is a legacy
auto, and we know Herbet Diess has been working hard on getting VW to move into electric.
They were ahead of all the non-deathtrap Chinese EVs too.
Of the top 20 EVs only perhaps 1/3 of them
are illegible for sale in the developed markets.
And as you can see, they are all still in very low numbers.
Yet we are still inundated with headlines like "XPeng More Than Tripled EV Sales In
March".
Yet their total sales are only 15,000 still.
It's easy to triple your sales when they are close to nothing, it's the next tripling that
is the hard part.
It seems like people assume this growth to continue, it continued for Tesla, and this
is much faster growth than Tesla has seen recently.
As you can see, they are capping out at around only half way to volume production.
It becomes exponentially harder increasing production volume at this level too.
You need to find break-throughs, like, I don't know, perhaps giga casting machines, or structural
battery packs, maybe octovalves and heatpumps designed by a space company too.
Elon continually expresses that this is not going to be possible for them, he knows how
hard it was for him, and how much better Tesla is than everyone else, and how much they will
struggle.
Also bear in mind a lot of these Chinese EVs that are growing, they are growing in quantity,
with lower quality vehicles, and much less range.
It looks like the EV expansion is increasing at a rapid rate on paper as a result.
These are very low cost EVs, and likely not being bought instead of an ICE car, but instead
of an ICE scooter.
As in China isn't just replacing ICE vehicles, they are still building out their actual auto
market.
Also all these Chinese vehicles, well the vast majority are sold in China, and they
all receive a subsidy too, which has been dwindling over the years, and there is talk
of it ending too.