In February, NEV sales in China totalled 892,000 units. It means the market has grown significantly compared to the previous year. However, compared to January, the Chinese New Year has had a noticeable impact.
The 892,000 new energy vehicles (NEV), i.e. battery electric vehicles (BEV), fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV), represent an increase of 87.1 per cent compared to the same month last year, but a decrease of 5.5 per cent compared to January. The CN EV Post says that ‘seasonal factors continued to take their toll,’ referring to the Chinese New Year. This year, the multi-day celebrations, during which many Chinese people travel to their families and do not buy cars, took place mostly in February, which is shorter anyway and has fewer sales days.
However, the figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) include the wholesale sales of automobile manufacturers, i.e. both retail sales in China and vehicles for export. Excluding exports, the result was of course lower at 760,000 new energy vehicles, but the trend is similar: February’s result is 92.6 per cent higher than the same month last year, but 4.2 per cent lower than January.
But let’s look again at the CAAM figures, i.e. with exports. Of the 892,000 NEVs, 544,000 were battery electric vehicles (+85.1 per cent compared to 2024, -5.2 per cent compared to January) and 348,000 were plug-in hybrids (+90.3 per cent YoY, -6.0 per cent compared to January). So here, too, there was no major shift in the ratio between BEV and PHEV. However, if we subtract battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids from the total number of new energy vehicles, there are fewer than 1,000 units left for fuel cell vehicles.
A total of 2.13 million vehicles were sold in China in February, 34.4 per cent more than in the previous year and 12.2 per cent less than in January – so, electrified vehicles performed significantly better than the market as a whole. The NEV share was thus 41.9 per cent – a year ago it was still 30.1 per cent. However, the NEV rate in the second half of 2024 was already well over 45 per cent, when more than one million new energy vehicles were sold per month. For China, which traditionally tends to have a weaker start to the year, the results for January and February are quite positive.
Among the manufacturers, BYD is currently ahead by an unassailable margin. The purely NEV manufacturer sold 322,846 vehicles in February, an increase of 164 per cent over the same month last year and also more than in January (300,538 vehicles). These included 318,233 NEV passenger vehicles, with the rest being electric commercial vehicles. The commercial vehicle division was able to increase its February sales by an impressive 719 per cent to 4,613 vehicles. In the case of BYD passenger vehicles, the trend continues for the manufacturer to sell more plug-in hybrids than battery-electric vehicles. The BEV came to 124,902 units (+127.5 per cent), while the plug-in hybrids came to 193,331 vehicles (+189.2 per cent). Also worth mentioning: BYD’s exports reached 67,025 vehicles for the third consecutive record month.
Tesla is currently a long way from setting records in China, as the manufacturer’s sales continued to fall before the start of deliveries of the revised Model Y Juniper. Tesla sales in China usually fluctuate greatly, with mostly one weak and two stronger months per quarter. February, however, is down another 20.5 per cent on the already weak January, with 26,777 vehicles sold in China. The figures will be interesting from March onwards when the Model Y Juniper will have been available for the first full month. In addition, 3,911 Teslas built in China were exported.
But Tesla was not the only one struggling in February: Nio only managed to stay in the five-digit range thanks to deliveries of the new Onvo brand, with 13,192 vehicles. Nio itself would have fallen below the 10,000 mark with 9,143 deliveries, plus 4,049 new Onvos. While Nio and the startup Xpeng, which is also well known in Europe, were more or less neck and neck for a long time, Xpeng has now pulled ahead: The VW partner has delivered 30,453 vehicles (+570 per cent), more than half of which were the new Mona M03.
Xiaomi continues to deliver over 20,000
The Geely Group recorded 98,433 NEV sales in February, accounting for almost half (48 per cent) of total sales. The majority of these were accounted for by the Geely-branded Galaxy NEV series (76,132 units), while the pure NEV brands Lynk & Co and Zeekr contributed 17,238 and 14,039 vehicles respectively. These two brands are now internally combined to form the ‘Zeekr Group,’ which thus reached 31,277 deliveries.
At Leapmotor, sales remained virtually constant at 25,287 units compared to January. However, the manufacturer will launch the B10 SUV model this month, which should provide a new boost. The current shooting star, Xiaomi, still does not provide exact monthly figures. However, the SU7 is said to have again exceeded 20,000 deliveries in February. And the startup Li Auto, which specialises in range-extender vehicles, achieved 26,263 deliveries in February.
At the state-owned carmaker Chery, NEV sales are slowly picking up. With 44,375 units, new energy vehicles only make up a small portion of the company’s sales of 180,932 vehicles, but NEV sales are almost 280 per cent higher than in the previous year. This is due to brands such as Luxeed, Exeed and iCAR. Great Wall sold 15,121 new energy vehicles in February.
cnevpost.com (CAAM), cnevpost.com (BYD), cnevpost.com (Tesla), nio.com (Nio), xiaopeng.com (Xpeng), gasgoo.com (Geely), cnevpost.com (Zeekr), cnevpost.com (Leapmotor), cnevpost.com (Xiaomi), cnevpost.com (Li Auto), gasgoo.com (Chery), gasgoo.com (Great Wall)
