An NEV manufacturing line in Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality Photo: VCG

Sales in China of new-energy vehicles (NEVs) in 2022 are estimated to have reached 6.49 million, a year-on-year increase of 96 percent, a new industry report says.

The report released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on Thursday also estimated that the sales of NEVs in December increased by 45 percent year-on-year to 730,000 units.

In December, the NEV market had strong production and sales momentum, with BYD’s sales reaching 234,598 units, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile selling 85,632 and Tesla selling 55,796, said the CPCA.

It is worth noting that BYD’s overseas sales in December exceeded 10,000 units again, reaching 11,300 vehicles, after it passed the milestone in November for the first time with 12,300 NEVs exported, according to a sales report released by BYD on Tuesday.

The fact that the withdrawal of government subsidies for NEVs was scheduled for December 31, 2022 also promoted NEV sales before the end of the year, according to the industry association.

For the whole of 2022, it is estimated that NEV sales were 6.49 million units, compared with 3.31 million units in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 96 percent, read the report.

BYD’s cumulative NEV sales volume in 2022 was 1.86 million units, a year-on-year growth of 208.64 percent, according to data sent to the Global Times from BYD on Wednesday. Its overseas sales for the full year have reached 55,900 vehicles, surpassing previous forecasts of 50,000 vehicles.

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory delivered more than 710,000 NEVs in 2022, a year-on-year rise of 48 percent, with deliveries of the Model Y topping 450,000 vehicles, according to the CPCA’s estimate.

In 2022, a total of 1.31 million Tesla NEVs were delivered globally, a year-on-year rise of 40 percent, far surpassing the second place of 910,000 units, according to a statement sent from Tesla to the Global Times on Thursday.

It means that deliveries by Tesla’s Shanghai plant accounted for more than 50 percent of its global deliveries in 2022, coming less than three years after the first China-made Tesla was delivered. In August 2022, a total of one million NEVs rolled off the production line at Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory. 

High efficiency is behind the massive delivery numbers, said Tesla, which also noted that the localization rate for parts in the Shanghai Gigafactory is higher than 95 percent.

The brand has expanded in China at tremendous speed. At present, Tesla has completed the construction of 10,000 supercharging stations in the Chinese mainland. By the end of December 2022, Tesla had more than 320 stores and service centers nationwide.