The late Chinese New Year in 2024, as well as the lower base in 2023, made the auto sales in January 2024 realize a “red door”. According to the data of the passenger association, the wholesale sales of new energy passenger car manufacturers reached 682,000 units in January 2024, an increase of 76.2% year-on-year.
In the January 2024 new energy passenger car sales list released by the passenger association, there have been as many as 18 car companies with monthly sales of more than 10,000 units, and the top ten companies, except for Tesla, are all independent brands. In the list, BYD with 201493 units of results in the first place in the list, Tesla China with 71,447 units of results in the second place, followed by Geely Automobile, sales of 65826 units.
In this list, there are 10 car companies with monthly sales of less than 1,000 units, most of which are joint ventures. Changan Ford (165 units), Beijing Hyundai (171 units), GAC Toyota (211 units), which used to be at the top of the fuel car sales list, ranked in the bottom three of the list. BAIC, which had an earlier layout in the new energy vehicle market, has now dropped out of the sales results (775 units for BAIC Passenger Cars and 717 units for Polaris).
Tesla and 9 Chinese companies share the new energy market
Musk previously said in an interview that in the future there will be 10 best automobile companies that can survive the fierce competition, in which Tesla and nine Chinese electric car companies will inevitably occupy a place among them.
The top 10 sellers in China’s new energy vehicle market in the month of January just past indeed showed the same characteristics: consisting of Tesla and nine Chinese car companies.
At the top of the list was BYD. BYD’s new energy vehicle sales in January amounted to 201,493 units, up 33.14% year-on-year, including 201,019 passenger cars, up 33.9% year-on-year, 105,304 pure-electric vehicles, and 95,715 plug-in hybrid vehicles. Currently, BYD’s cumulative sales of new energy vehicles have exceeded 6.5 million units.
Photo credit: Tesla
In second place on the list is Tesla. It sold 71,447 EVs in January, realizing an 8% year-over-year increase. And Tesla’s sales were mainly contributed by the Model Y and Model 3 models.
In the first month of 2024, Geely Automobile Group hit a record high with 213,500 units sold. Among them, Geely’s new energy vehicle sales accounted for more than 30%, reaching 65,800 units, a nearly six-fold year-on-year improvement and a 14.3% YoY increase. This also makes Geely new energy vehicles on the new energy list in January third place. Specifically, pure electric models improved three times year-on-year, while plug-in hybrids surged to 29,500 units from 588 units in the same period last year. The reason is that Geely launched a new energy series Galaxy sold nearly 20,000 units in January this year. In addition, Geely’s premium pure-electric brand, Extreme Krypton, also saw a significant increase in sales to 12,500 units.
Li Auto, which leads the list of new carmakers in this passenger association list, delivered 31,165 units in January, with all three of its SUVs in hot demand in the car market. In addition, the Li MEGA, a pure electric MPV, is expected to be launched and delivered around March, and the Li L6 is expected to be officially launched in April. Li Auto Chairman and CEO Li Want said that 2024 will be an unprecedented product year for Li Auto, with four extended-range models and four pure-electric models being launched. Also this year, Li Auto will challenge the target of delivering 800,000 units annually.
In January this year, Ceres and Li Auto were in a stalemate. Thanks to the hot sales of M7, Seres became the dark horse in the January list, realizing 30,980 units of sales, an increase that led other brands.
According to the data released by Inquirer, AITO delivered 32,973 new cars in January, up 34.76% sequentially and 636.83% year-on-year, becoming the “top seller” of new domestic brands for the first time.
In addition, among the new car-making forces, including Leapmotor, NIO, and NETA all achieved over 10,000 deliveries. 7,041 new cars were delivered by VOYAH, a year-on-year growth of up to 355%. 2024, VOYAH will launch a new target of 100,000 units sold annually.
Automotive market shuffling intensifies
The hot sales of new energy vehicles, exacerbating the reshuffle in the automotive industry. In the past in the field of fuel vehicles in the strong position of traditional automobile enterprises in the field of new energy vehicles in general has not yet established a new advantage, and even in the field of new energy vehicles layout earlier enterprises, but also not necessarily in the long run of car-making, always maintain the leading position.
In this new energy vehicle sales list released by the passenger association in January, joint ventures are generally located in the middle and back of the list. The data show that most of the car companies selling less than 1,000 new energy models in January were joint ventures. Such as Changan Ford 165 units, Beijing Hyundai 171 units, GAC Toyota 211 units, ranked in the bottom three of this list. In addition, MAXUS, GAC Honda, Jiangsu Yueda Kia new energy vehicle sales in January were less than a thousand.
National passenger car market information association secretary-general Cui Dongshu previously said that with the electrification of the passenger car industry intelligent transformation, the original industrial advantages of joint ventures weakened, increasing competitive pressure, in the face of more severe market challenges, new energy to accelerate the transformation is imminent.
In addition, the new energy vehicle market, the speed of industry reshuffle is also accelerating. Such as the former overlord of the field of new energy vehicles BAIC, now the sales results are not ideal. Data show that BAIC passenger car sales of new energy models in January was 775 units, and the sales of the extreme fox car in January was 717 units. It is worth noting that ARCFOX 2023 annual sales of 30,016 units, even less than Li Auto sales in a month.
Facing the reconstruction of the market pattern, joint ventures have accelerated the pace of transformation. According to Hyundai’s newly released “2025 New Plan”, Hyundai plans to realize full hybridization of fuel vehicles by 2025, and build a hybridized product matrix consisting of one MPV model, two sedans, and three SUVs in the next 3-5 years. At the same time, through the introduction of Hyundai’s new-generation TMED hybrid technology, it will realize a 15%-20% reduction in fuel consumption of different products, and maintain the scale of annual sales of hybrid products of about 300,000 units.
“At its peak, there were 300 companies lining up to apply for car-making qualifications, and 62 new car-making forces released new energy strategies; now only 17 new car-making forces have sales, and the vast majority of their annual sales are in the low four-digit range.” Wang Jun, president of Changan Automobile, predicted that with the increase in the intensity of market competition, the concentration of the new energy automobile industry will increase rapidly, and in the future, among the remaining 126 brands, the TOP 10 car companies will account for more than 85% of the share, the remaining 116 brands to share the remaining 15% of the share, and most of the car companies will be shut down, and the automobile industry is ushering in the great reshuffle.
Data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) shows that in 2023, China’s new energy vehicle sales reached 9.495 million units, a year-on-year increase of 37.9%, with a market share of 31.6%. 2024 new energy vehicle sales are expected to reach 11.5 million units. New energy vehicles will still maintain the momentum of rapid growth.