Here are the 6 biggest winners in China’s nationwide EV buying spree
BYD, Nio, Xpeng, Li Auto, Stellantis-backed Leapmotor and Geely’s Zeekr all delivered record numbers of EVs last month
Half a dozen assemblers in China delivered record numbers of electric vehicles (EVs) to customers last month, as they rode on a nationwide buying spree before the end of a state subsidy that boosted the year’s total sales to 10 million units.
The 20,000 yuan (US$2,740) subsidy for replacing oil guzzlers with EVs – equivalent to between 10 and 20 per cent of the price of half of the EVs on Chinese roads – ran from July to December, prompting customers to rush to seal deals ahead of the year end, said Zhao Zhen, a sales director at Shanghai-based dealer Wan Zhuo Auto.
That way, they can “benefit from the subsidy”, she said, noting that the sales momentum may not be sustainable in 2025 with the expiry of the subsidy, as budget-conscious Chinese consumers refrain from spending on big-ticket items amid slowing economic growth.
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For now, carmakers are celebrating their new milestones. BYD, the world’s largest electric car assembler, sold 514,809 units in December, smashing its November record by 1.6 per cent. The Shenzhen-based company delivered 4.27 million pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last year, up 41.3 per cent compared with 2023. It also beat the full-year sales target of 3.6 million units chairman Wang Chuanfu announced in March by almost 19 per cent.
Nio handed 31,138 EVs to customers last month, up 72.9 per cent from the same month in 2023, bolstered by surging deliveries of its mass-market brand Onvo. The Shanghai-based carmaker sold more than 30,000 cars for the first time last month.
Xpeng, based in Guangzhou, rewrote its monthly sales record for the fourth consecutive month in December, delivering 36,695 cars, up 18.8 per cent from November.
Li Auto, Tesla’s nearest rival on the mainland, reported sales of 58,513 units last month, 8.9 per cent higher than the previous record of 53,709 vehicles set in September.
Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology, a carmaker based in the Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou and backed by Stellantis, delivered 42,517 vehicles last month, breaking its monthly sales record for the seventh consecutive month, up 5.9 per cent from November.
Sales of Zeekr, a brand in the portfolio of Geely Automobile Holding, edged up 0.7 per cent from a month earlier to 27,190 units in December, completing a four-month winning streak.
China’s government is likely to maintain some incentives – albeit at smaller amounts – to prop up the EV industry, which is already the fastest-growing segment within the largest automotive market on the planet, dealers said. Three of every five new cars on Chinese roads are likely to be partially or entirely powered by electricity by 2030, according to UBS.
China’s 2024 EV sales may jump by 38 per cent to 10.68 million units, according to Cui Dongshu, general secretary of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The EV adoption rate in China has exceeded 50 per cent since July, while the sales of pure electric and hybrid cars account for about 60 per cent of the global total.
The faster adoption rate, helped by the ready availability of a nationwide EV charging infrastructure, reduces the pressure on subsidies. Any subsidy for replacing oil guzzlers is likely to be halved to 10,000 yuan per vehicle in the new year, according to dealers and analysts.
EV deliveries in China will dip this year if Beijing does not dole out a cash award to encourage EV ownership, Geely’s CEO Hui Shengyue said during an interview last month.
To make matters worse, China’s EV sector is crowded with 50 or so major assemblers with several hundred models between them, where fierce competition has resulted in several rounds of brutal discount war battered by overcapacity worries.
The EV builders are capable of producing around 20.2 million units a year, according to Goldman Sachs. Based on the estimated sales of 10.68 million units in 2024, only half of the capacity was used.
Despite the government’s subsidy, EV assemblers also offered discounts to lure more customers to survive the cutthroat competition.
Last year, the average price of a pure electric car was reduced by 10 per cent, or 20,000 yuan, while hybrids were discounted by 4.3 per cent, which would save buyers 10,500 yuan per unit, according to CPCA data.
To date, only three EV makers – BYD, Li Auto and Huawei Technologies-backed Aito – are profitable, according to industry data.
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