The third quarter is already behind us, so now we can take a look at the global all-electric car sales results of the three largest manufacturers.
The BEV big three is Tesla, BYD and Volkswagen Group (including Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Skoda and SEAT brands).
While Tesla remains #1 and has been for a long time, this year, BYD easily passed the struggling Volkswagen Group and moves forward to potentially challenge Tesla.
In Q3, Tesla set a new BEV sales record of 343,830 units (up 42% year-over-year). That's a good result, but Tesla needs to accelerate if it does not want to be caught by BYD.
The Chinese company almost tripled its sales to 258,610 in Q3 (up 182%). We don't know how long BYD will be able to sustain its outstanding growth rate, but right now it appears that it can go above 300,000 pretty quickly (maybe even to 350,000), which means that Tesla is within range.
It's worth noting that the difference between Tesla and BYD has decreased by 43% year-over-year to just 85,220 units.
In the case of the Volkswagen Group, the results are not so good - 149,300 (up 22%), including about 1,000 commercial vehicles.
The gap to Tesla widened by 63% year-over-year to 194,530 and the German group is now significantly behind BYD. One of the reasons for that is production constraints in Europe (first caused by the general chip shortage and later also related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine). On the other hand, BYD navigated through challenges quite well and avoided Chinese lockdowns.
BEV sales results in Q3 2022:
- Tesla: 343,830 (up 42% year-over-year)
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BYD: 258,610 (up 182% year-over-year) or 75% of Tesla's result
Difference to 1st: 85,220 (down 43% year-over-year from 149,707) -
Volkswagen Group: 149,300 (up 22.3% year-over-year) or 43% of Tesla's result
*including a very small number of commercial BEVs
Difference to 1st: 194,530 (up 63% year-over-year from 119,291)
Tesla vs Volkswagen Group BEV vs BYD BEV sales - Q3 2022
According to the stats, it seems that the year 2022 will be another win for Tesla in terms of all-electric car sales volume, as no other automotive group will be able to cross 1 million units.
BEV sales results YTD:
- Tesla: 908,573 (up 45% year-over-year)
- BYD: 582,130 (up 214% year-over-year) or 64% of Tesla's result
Difference to 1st: 326,443 - Volkswagen Group: 366,400 (up 25.0% year-over-year) or 40% of Tesla's result
*including a very small number of commercial BEVs
Difference to 1st: 542,173
It's difficult to say how the "race" will continue, as all three manufacturers have potential for fast growth: Tesla has two new plants in ramp-up phase and new models in the pipeline, BYD notes strong domestic demand and expands to other markets (including Europe), while Volkswagen Group sooner or later will sort out manufacturing constraints and add even more BEVs to its lineup.
Hopefully, some other automotive groups also will be able to enter a higher gear of electrification and join the race.
