What declining sales? Global EV sales grow 19% in March!

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EVs now make up 19% of global car sales

Global vehicle registrations with plug-ins increased by 19% in March 2024 compared to March 2023. There were 1.3 million registrations. BEVs rose 7% year-on-year, while plug-in hybrids rose 50% year-on-year, with March the second best month on record.

Ultimately, plug-ins represented a 19% share of the total automotive market (13% BEV share alone). This means that the global car market will remain in the future Electrical disturbance zone.

Add to that the 1.1 million plugless hybrids registered in March, a new record, and we have a staggering number 35% of global sales in March had some form of electrification….

Year to date, the market share of plug-in electric vehicles has increased by 2% to 16% (10% BEV).

Fully electric vehicles (BEVs) represented 65% of plug-in registrations in March, keeping the number at 63% this year.

20 best-selling EV models in the world in March

Looking at March's bestsellers, while the Tesla Model Y is in the lead (as usual), with about 119,000 registrations, among them we have two BYD models, the #2 Song and #3 Qin Plus. The Qin Plus reached a record 52,305 registrations, allowing it to finish the month ahead of the Tesla Model 3, which was relegated to 4th place with 41,000 registrations.

In fact, Shenzhen placed 7 representatives in the top 10! The highlight of this is the BYD Destroyer 05, the naughty brother or sister of the Qin Plus. The Destroyer 05 scored a record of 19,153 registrations in March. This is undoubtedly another model that benefits from the recently introduced BYD War on ICE (also called price cut war).

Besides the Tesla and BYD fleets, the only other model to perform in the top 10 was the AITO M7, with the Huawei-backed model ending the month in 8th place.

Volkswagen Group placed two models in the top 20. The VW ID.4 ended the month in 13th place and the VW ID.3 finished in 19th place, while the Audi Q4 e-tron was not far behind and in 21st place ended with 9,765 registrations.

Off the table, the highlights came from the Volvo stable, with the recently introduced EX30 reaching 8,000 registrations in just its third month on the market! Expect it to be in the top 20 soon. Meanwhile, the experienced XC60 PHEV surprised everyone with a record result: 9,626 registrations.

Finally, reference is made to the Jeep Wrangler PHEV, which scored 8,117 registrations in March, the best result since June 2021. This is a sign that plug-in hybrids remain popular in the US.

Top 20 EV Models YTD

In the year-to-date (YTD) table, the biggest news comes from the stage. As usual, the Tesla Model Y reigns supreme over the BYD Song, and the Chinese SUV sits comfortably in second place, but between these two, something big happened.

The BYD Qin Plus benefited from its record March result, surpassing the Tesla Model 3 and ending the first quarter of the year ahead of Tesla's sedan. Does this mean that the Tesla sedan will disappear from the podium by the end of the year? Hard to say at this point. With a new BYD Qin L landing soon and potentially stealing the Qin Plus' thunder, the US model could benefit from BYD's fierce internal competitionbut if it does happen and the Model 3 disappears from the podium, it will be the for the first time since 2017 that something like this happened…

Following the same trend as in Chinathe Tesla Model 3 is not off to a good start to the year, as global deliveries are down 20% year-on-year, a worrying sign for a model that was only recently refreshed – especially considering that the unrenewed Model Y fell by only 6% over the same period.

Just off the podium the #4 Seagull/Dolphin Mini outpaced the AITO M7. And with the #7 BYD Yuan Plus/Atto 3 less than 3,000 units behind AITO's large SUV, BYD's crossover could surpass it as early as May.

Still on BYD: The BYD Han jumped three positions to #10, making it six BYDs in the 2024 top 10. The Destroyer 05 also jumped onto the table, straight to 13th position.

Elsewhere, GAC's Aion S recovered some positions in March, jumping from #20 in February to #16 in March.

Thanks to another strong month of May, the Audi Q4 e-tron moves closer to the top 20, now less than 300 units behind the #20 Geely Panda Mini.

Best selling brands

In March #1 BYD, now deep into pricing out the ICE competition (and there are quite a few other EVs on the way…), did not disappoint. It scored around 287,000 registrations. Expect sales to continue to rise steadily throughout the year. Although, if that sales increase doesn't materialize, BYD will have wasted profit margins for nothing.

As for Tesla, with the “unwinding of the delivery surge” and the sales decline in the first quarter, the March result wasn't much to celebrate, but it still tripled the sales of #3 BMW….

Yes, among the top two galacticaBMW won the final position on the podium, after which a surprising Mercedes finished in fifth place with a record 38,069 registrations – largely thanks to good results across its team. long line-up, such as the EQA and EQB that each score 6,000 units and the recently introduced Mercedes GLC PHEV that reaches 4,200 units.

Another premium brand that achieved a record result was #6 Volvo. Thanks to the advance of the new EX30 and good results from the XC60 PHEV and XC40, Volvo registered 34,651 registrations.

In the second half of the table, a surprising Toyota achieved its best ever result, with 25,449 registrations, largely thanks to the good results of the China-only BZ3 sedan (5,700 units) and the globally sold BZ4X (6,100 units). Expect the Japanese brand to continue achieving record results this year, especially if attractive models like the recently shown BZ3C enter Toyota's key markets…

With Toyota currently the third largest brand in China (it was in second place before BYD's rise), it needs to ramp up its EV business quickly – or it could say bye to the more than million units it sells on that market.

A final mention goes to Changan's most recent descendants. Despite landing only a few months ago, Qiyuan was already on the bestseller list, at number 20 with 15,207 registrations. Is this another Chinese brand we should follow closely?

Outside the bestseller list, Leap Motor (14,658 registrations), Peugeot (14,449 registrations, the best score since September) and Zeekr (13,647 registrations) finished close to the top 20 and will be strong candidates to return there in the coming months.

In the YTD table, there wasn't much to report at the top. BYD is ahead of Tesla and the American brand has three times as many registrations as the #3 BMW.

Well below these two, which are truly in a class of their own, BMW and Wuling remained in their positions, while Mercedes benefited from the record month of March and rose two positions to fifth.

AITO's rise was halted by none other than its direct rival, Li Auto, who rose to 7th place.

In the second half of the rankings, Aion marked the return to the form of its dynamic duo, the Aion S and Aion Y, jumping three places to 11th.

The remaining highlights come from older brands. Kia rose to #14 and Hyundai to #17. Additionally, Ford returned to the bestseller list in #19, and Peugeot did the same in #20. #LegacyOEMs are fighting for their lives

Yet Zeekr remains about 1,300 copies behind the French brand outdated OEM recovery could go off the rails as early as May….

Top Selling OEMs for EV Sales

Looking at registrations by OEM#1 BYD gained market share thanks to its recent price cuts, from 17.3% to the current 19.4% (it had 21.3% a year ago), while Tesla ended the quarter with a 12% market share (it had 16. 5% in the same period of 2023).

Third place is held by Geely-Volvo, with the OEM losing 0.5% along the way (8.3% a month ago, 7.8% now). Still, the Chinese OEM is the one that has made the most progress in the top 5, from 6.1% in the first quarter of 2023 to the current 7.8%.

Given Tesla's recent stock decline and Geely's significant growth, will we see the Chinese juggernaut threaten Tesla's silver medal by the end of the year?

Meanwhile, both #4 Volkswagen Group (6.4%, down from 6.5%) and #5 SAIC (5.9%, down from 6.4%) declined. Although the results are compared to the same period of 2023, while the German OEM has lost 1% market share, SAIC has actually advanced by 0.4%.

Among SAIC, Stellantis (4.3%, down from 4.4%) ranks sixth, but has lost significant market share compared to the first quarter of 2023, when it had 4.9%.

In the race for seventh place, BMW Group (3.8%, down 0.2% from February) was again overtaken by Changan (4%, up from 3.9%), with #8 Hyundai -Kia (3.5%) came closer to these two.

Just look at BEVsTesla remained in the lead with 19%, but lost 4.6% market share compared to the same period last year. Despite this, the American brand still has a comfortable lead over BYD (14.8%, an increase of 0.3%). With Tesla rapidly losing market share, BYD could surpass it by the end of the third or early fourth quarter.

Last place on the podium saw another change in position, with Geely-Volvo (7.4%, down 0.3%) surpassing SAIC (7.3%, down 7.7%) to regain the bronze medal .

In fifth place we have Volkswagen Group, with 6.7%, a decrease of 0.2%. The German OEM wants to reach the two players ahead of it, but still has a way to climb. Still, the German conglomerate, with #6 BMW Group (4.1%) at a safe distance, could try to recover lost time in the coming months.