The first quarter of 2022 brings a significant increase in global plug-in electric car sales - against all the challenges.
According to EV-Volumes data shared by Jose Pontes, some 2 million new passenger plug-in cars were registered in Q1 2022 (including over 851,000 in March), compared to some 1.1 million in Q1 2021.
In this post, we will check out the volume and share of the top OEMs in the overall plug-in market, and then in the battery-electric segment.
Plug-ins (BEV+PHEVs)
In the plug-in category, which combines all-electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) cars, there are two main contenders this year - Tesla with 310,411 units and BYD with 285,849, although Tesla offers only BEVs.
It's expected that this race will continue until the end of 2022, but Tesla probably has much higher manufacturing potential, which will be crucial to winning (the demand side in both cases exceeds supply).
A big surprise for many might be the fact that SAIC, including its SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture, is third (170,454), slightly ahead of the Volkswagen Group (154,824), which was struggling with parts supply. It's something that will probably change over the course of 2022 because the German manufacturer will unlock additional EV manufacturing capacity (including in the US).
Fifth on the list is the Geely-Volvo group (110,253), although the Hyundai Motor Group is just behind (a few thousand units lower) so it will be another close race.
Plug-in car sales in Q1 2022 (vs previous year):
- Tesla: 310,411 and 15.5% share (vs 16%)
- BYD: 285,849 and 14.3% share
- SAIC (incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling): 170,454 and 8.5% share
- Volkswagen Group: 154,824 and 8.8% share (vs 12%)
- Geely-Volvo: 110,253 and 5.6% share
Top 5 total: 1,031,791 (51.7% share)
others: 965,557 (48.3% share)
Total: 1,997,348
Battery-electric only (BEV)
In terms of all-electric car sales, Tesla has a very high advantage over other automotive groups, but its market share decreased compared to previous years (currently below 22%).
SAIC (incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling) is the second largest group with over 154,000 and 10.7% share - mostly thanks to the Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV (micro cars).
The most interesting thing is that BYD (144,203) doubled its share in the BEV segment to 10% and is now far ahead of the Volkswagen Group (98,455) and Hyundai Motor Group (81,744).
All-electric car sales in Q1 2022 (vs previous year):
- Tesla: 310,411 and 21.6% share (vs 25%)
- SAIC (incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling): 154,623 and 10.7% share (vs 17%)
- BYD: 144,203 and 10% share (vs 5%)
- Volkswagen Group: 98,455 and 6.8% share (vs 8%)
- Hyundai Motor Group: 81,744 and 5.7% share
Top 5 total: 789,436 (55% share)
others: over 0.65 million (45% share)
Total: about 1.44 million
See also our previous reports for automotive groups:
