China, Championed Electric Car Sales, 2017!
The rise and rise of the Chinese plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market is unstoppable, with yet another record performance in December. A total of 102,000 new passenger PEVs were registered last month, up 130% year over year. Yes, that was just December, and it pulled the year-to-date count to over 600,000 units, up 71% compared to 2016.
As consequence of this rapid growth, in December, the PEV share hit a record 3.3% market share of the entire Chinese auto market, while the entire 2017 PEV market share ended at 2.1%. That’s firmly ahead of last year’s score (1.5%) and above the USA (1.2%) and Europe (~1.9%).
The Chinese PEV market represented roughly half of the 1.2 million plug-ins sold worldwide in 2017, while Chinese carmakers made 47% of all PEVs sold last year.
Despite exports still being symbolic, the domestic market is more than enough to absorb the current production, helped by the fact that it is a highly protected market — foreign brands represent only 4% of PEV sales. Of this small cake, 2% belongs to Tesla, with the remaining 2% being divided by all other automakers.
In December, small city cars had the upper hand again, with the BAIC EC-Series being the poster child of them. The BAIC EC-Series saw over 13,000 sales, which allowed it to reach #30 in the mainstream automotive ranking in China. It was a good month also for the BYD plug-in hybrids, with the Song and Qin joining the top 5 ranking in December.
After a series of ever improving performances, it looks like the BAIC EC-Series has found its cruising speed, at over 10,000 units/month.
It earned a whopping 13,169 registrations in December. The little city EV is proving to be disruptive in China, owing its success to a trendy design (reminiscent of a crossover), improved specs (now with 200 km, or 125 miles, of range) and competitive pricing ($22,000), all in a booming market segment.
With the Chinese and the global editions of the 2017 Best Selling PEV Award in BAIC’s hands, the EC-Series is now looking into 2018. A six-digit performance is likely — how far above 100,000 is pretty much open to discussion, but wouldn’t rule out the possibility that this small EV could outsell the Tesla Model 3 and become the 2018 Best Seller … in the World. Again.
Credit source; cleantechnica
