Surging Chinese automaker BYD sold more plug-in passenger cars in the first half of the year than any other car manufacturer. It also proved to have a particularly fruitful second quarter, selling 700,244 new energy vehicles around the world.
BYD has ambitions to overtake Tesla as the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles but at the moment, is selling EVs alongside plug-in hybrids. With sales for H1 2023 hitting 1,255,637 units, BYD managed to increase its sales by a significant 95.78% over last year.
Sales figures published by CNEVPost reveal that BYD had a particularly strong Q2 where it sold a total of 703,561 EVs and PHEVs, including commercial vehicles, while 700,244 of them were passenger models sold to everyday consumers. Of those cars sold, 352,162 were battery-electric vehicles while the remaining 348,081 were plug-in hybrids. These figures mean that BEV sales jumped 95.32% year-on-year and 33.07% from the first quarter, while PHEV sales spiked 101.06% year-on-year and 22.88% over the first quarter.
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To put these figures into perspective, Tesla built 479,700 cars in the second quarter and delivered 466,140 of them. That means it continues to hold a commanding lead over BYD in terms of BEV sales but the Chinese car manufacturer is closing the gap.
June proved to be a particularly good month for the brand, with it selling some 251,685 passenger NEVs around the world, a 109.39% increase from June 2022 and 5.6% more than the 239,092 cars it sold in May 2023. Of the cars sold in June, 128,196 were BEVs while the remaining were PHEVs.
BYD has an ambitious aim of selling 3 million new cars this year. If it is to achieve this figure, then it will need to sell roughly 290,000 units each month for the rest of the year.
