China's new energy vehicle registrations surge 143% YoY in August

Insurance registrations of locally-made passenger vehicles (PVs) in China saw both month-on-month and year-on-year decrease in August while the monthly volume of new energy vehicles (NEVs) increased year on year and month on month, according to an insurance regulator.

Data from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) showed that insurance registrations of locally-made PVs fell 2.9% month on month and 8.4% from a year ago to 1,530,514 vehicles last month. The total registrations in the first eight months of this year amounted to 13,069,257 vehicles, jumping 21.4% compared to the same span of last year.

The top 20 brands by August registrations contributed nearly 80% of the total monthly registrations. The top 7 brands on the monthly brand list remained the same as that of July, but five out of the top 7 had registrations decrease last month while monthly registrations of Wuling brand jumped 73.3% year on year. Thanks to a month-on-month increase of 12.7% and a surge of 141.4% from a year ago, BYD’s ranking managed to increase one spot to the eighth which was occupied by Haval brand in July.

There was a new member on the monthly list, Cadillac, which was the last one on the list and outnumbered the 21st Ford only by 274 vehicles. Chevrolet’s ranking fell from the 20th on July list to the 23rd.

Fewer changes were on the top 20 brands of Jan.-Aug. insurance registrations. Hyundai and Trumpchi exchanged their rankings when compared with the list of the first seven months. Tesla failed to enter into either the monthly or the year-to-date registrations list.

By models, the combined registrations of the top 20 models by August registrations accounted for 23.6% of the total monthly registrations. The first 5 models were the same as the July model list and the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV had the largest year-on-year increase, up 270% from a year ago.

Compared with July list, there were eight new comers on August list, namely the BMW 3 Series, the Excelle, the Emgrand, the BMW 5 Series, the Hongqi HS5, the Sagitar, the EADO Plus and the GL8.

In terms of the year-to-date registrations, the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV’s ranking jumped 3 spots to the fourth when compared with the July list.

Even though the overall registrations declined last month, those of NEVs had increase from a month ago and from a year ago and accounted for 15% of the total vehicle registrations, 1.4 percentage points more than that of July.

In August, 228,855 NEVs were registered in the world’s biggest auto market, 6.8% more than the previous month and surging 143% from a year ago. By the end of August, the market has registered a total of 1,431,632 NEVs in total, jumping 54% year on year.

Battery electric vehicles represented 66% of monthly NEV registrations, scoring 178,779 units. The other 50,076 were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, including range-extended electric vehicles.

By August NEV registrations, all of the first 6 brands on the list were Chinese ones. BYD and Wuling remained the top two brands as the list of July. ORA jumped 8 spots to the second runner-up, with 13,014 vehicles registered last month and Li Auto were up two spots to the sixth. NIO, BMW and Geely all fell two spots.

Data from the CBIRC showed that with only 2,802 vehicles registered in August, Tesla ranked the 20th among all brands which sell NEVs. But the American brand was still the third in terms of Jan.-Aug. NEV registrations.

All of the top 20 most registered NEV models were from Chinese brands in August and their combined registrations accounted for 62% of the monthly NEV registrations. The Wuling Hongguang MINIEV had a share of 14.34% in the NEV segment.

Seven models out of the monthly list came from BYD, with the BYD Qin PLUS DM-i ranking the second. The ORA Black Cat from Great Wall Motor leaped 16 spots to the fourth in August from the 20th in July, pushing the brand’s ranking jump. The Chery eQ1 was the sixth last month, up from the 11th in July.

Tesla still occupied two of the top 3 most registered NEV models by Jan.-Aug. insurance registrations. But the total year-to-date registrations of Tesla vehicles were still far from those of the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV.