More than 2.5 million plug-in electric cars were sold in the first quarter of 2023, accounting for about 13 percent of the total car sales globally. Today, we will take a look at the largest manufacturers (automotive groups) of rechargeable cars.
According to EV-Volumes data, shared by Jose Pontes, five OEMs are responsible for more than half of all plug-in car sales.
See March and Q1 2023 sales results here.
As usual, first we will check out the volume and share of the top OEMs in the overall plug-in market first, and then in the battery-electric segment.
Plug-ins (BEV+PHEVs)
In the plug-in category, which combines battery-electric cars (BEV) and plug-in hybrid cars (PHEV), the top five remain stable.
BYD remains the #1 with over 548,000 units sold in Q1 and a 21.3 percent share. The Chinese manufacturer almost doubled its volume year-over-year and noticeably increased its market share compared to Q1 2022.
Tesla is the second best in the general plug-in segment, with 422,873 BEV units and a 16.5 percent market share.
One of the most interesting things is that both BYD and Tesla increased not only their volume but also their market share (year-over-year), which means that they are outpacing the general plug-in market.
The Volkswagen Group is the third largest OEM by volume (189,093), but its market share decreased compared to Q1 2022.
Together with Geely-Volvo, and SAIC, the top five are responsible for nearly 57 percent of all plug-in electric cars sold globally in the first quarter of 2023.
Plug-in car registrations in Q1 2023 (vs previous year):
- BYD Group: 548,148 and 21.3% share (vs 14.3%)
- Tesla: 422,873 and 16.5% share (vs 15.5%)
- Volkswagen Group: 189,093 and 7.4% share (vs 8.8%)
- Geely-Volvo: 156,475 and 6.1% share (vs 5.6%)
- SAIC (incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling): 141,661 and 5.5% share (vs 8.5%)
Top 5 total: 1,458,250 (56.8% share)
Others: 1,110,877 (43.2% share)
Total: 2,569,127
Battery-electric only (BEV)
In terms of all-electric car registrations, the top five manufacturers are slightly different, because BEV-focused Tesla is far ahead of everyone else (no change here). In Q1 2023, the company delivered 422,875 electric cars (up 36 percent year-over-year).
That's enough to increase its market share to 23.6 percent. It's interesting that nearly one in four new all-electric cars (even including microcars), is from Tesla.
BYD remains the strong second player, which is also increasing its market share even faster than Tesla to 14.7 percent in Q1.
The Volkswagen Group is third, but basically on par with SAIC. The company increased its sales volume and market share in Q1 to 7.5 percent. On the other hand, SAIC noted a decline to 7.4 percent (from 10.7 percent a year ago), losing its third place.
We covered the race between Tesla, BYD, and Volkswagen Group in detail here.
The fifth-largest OEM in the BEV segment is now Geely-Volvo (5.7 percent share) with just over 100,000 units sold in Q1.
Just like in the case of the broader plug-in category, also in the case of the all-electric cars, the top five manufacturers sold more than half of all BEVs.
All-electric car registrations in Q1 2023 (vs previous year):
- Tesla: 422,873 and 23.6% share (vs 21.6%)
- BYD Group: 264,300 and 14.7% share (vs 10%)
- Volkswagen Group: 133,933 and 7.5% share (vs 6.8%)
- SAIC (incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling): 133,269 and 7.4% share (vs 10.7%)
- Geely-Volvo: 102,018 and 5.7% share
Top 5 total: 1,056,393 (57% share)
Others: about 0.78 million (43% share)
Total: about 1.84 million
See also our previous reports for automotive groups:
