Car and City: nearly 50,000 Tesla Model Ys registered in Nov. 2023 across Chinese Mainland

China's monthly registrations of locally-made passenger vehicles (PVs) reached 1,916,991 units in November 2023, jumping 22.32% from the previous year, and edging up 0.44% from the previous month, according to the data compiled by the Gasgoo Auto Research Institute ("GARI").

For clarity, the PVs hereby refer to the vehicles locally produced and registered on the Chinese Mainland.

The slight month-on-month uptick in November's PV retail sales indicates a modest strengthening trend, typical for the winter season in recent years. This was propelled by the growth momentum of new energy vehicles (NEVs, composed of battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and range-extended electric vehicles) and the clearance of small batches of fuel-burning vehicles that align with the China VI-a emission standards. In contrast to the previous years' usual end-of-year stabilizing sales promotion efforts, this year's November witnessed an intensified sales promotion in the PV market, available for both oil-fueled vehicles and NEVs. Promotional endeavors, including trade-ins and local subsidies, have contributed to the release of consumer demands for car purchases.

At the national level, guiding policies for the automotive industry have been frequently released, aiming to further stabilize and expand automobile consumption. Initiatives such as the "Hundred-city Coordination" auto festival and the "Thousand Counties Ten Thousand Towns" new energy vehicle consumption season, driven by China's Ministry of Commerce, have been yielding positive results. Various regions have successively introduced new policies to bolster consumption, working in synergy with corporate sales promotions, so as to provide stable support for the year-end automotive market. The continued price reduction trend has heightened consumer hesitancy, leading to diminishing marginal benefits in terminal sales promotions, thus further resulting in a relatively subdued market during the "11. 11" shopping festival.

For the first eleven months of 2023, China's cumulative PV registrations summed up to 18,633,033 units, growing 7.1% from the previous year.

Among all brands with locally-produced PVs available for sale in China, BYD is still the only one that had over 200,000 units registered in November. Compared to the year-ago period, the Chinese leading new energy vehicle manufacturer scored a year-on-year jump of 23.25%. Among the vehicles BYD registered in the month, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) recorded a volume of 131,744 units and 85,497 units, respectively.

The 2nd to 4th seats on the rankings of brands by Nov. PV registrations were held by Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda, all of which registered over 100,000 vehicles. In terms of contributions from NEV sales, Volkswagen had 23,651 units (including 21,069 BEVs) registered in the month, while Toyota and Honda logged a registration volume of 3,712 units and 1,946 units, respectively.

In addition, the three prominent Chinese indigenous brands—Changan, Geely, and Wuling—ranked 5th, 6th, and 7th among brands by Nov. PV registrations. Tesla held the No. 9 place with only two BEV models currently for sale. Besides, the German trio—BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz—held the 10th, 12th, and 14th spots.

Additionally, some regulars in the top 20 brands rankings, such as Chery, Haval, Li Auto, Hongqi, AION, and Trumpchi, still made appearances in November, displaying the improved presence of China's local brands.

As for the hotter-selling PV models by Nov. registrations, the Model Y ranked highest with 49,931 vehicles registered, climbing four spots from the previous-month rankings and posting a month-on-month surge of 80.73%. The BYD Seagull dropped one spot from October to the runner-up place in November, but still attained a growth of 5.35% from a month ago.

Apart from the Seagull, BYD still had five models on the top 20 PV models list by Nov. registrations, namely, the Yuan PLUS, the Dolphin, the Song PLUS DM-i, the Song Pro DM, and the Qin PLUS DM-i, three of which were PHEVs.

The 3rd and 4th places in the rankings of the top 20 PV models were the two oil-fueled models—the Sylphy and the Sagitar. By Nov. registrations, the Frontlander was the last fuel-burning one that entered the top 10 PV models list.

Besides, Wuling brands' two all-electric city cars—the Hongguang MINIEV and the Binguo—ranked 7th and 8th among all PV models, demonstrating their popularity as affordable BEVs with a compact size.

Regarding the cumulative registrations for the Jan.-Nov. period of 2023, the Model Y was also crowned the champion among all PV models with 398,071 vehicles registered in total, outselling the runner-up (the Sylphy) by 93,472 units. BYD held six spots among the top 20 PV models by Jan.-Nov. registrations, five of which (the Dolphin, the Yuan PLUS, the Qin PLUS DM-i, the Song PLUS DM-i, and the Seagull) were among the names of the top 10 PV models.

Breaking down the number of spots by powertrain solutions, the top 20 model places by Jan.-Nov. registrations were evenly divided by NEVs and oil-fueled ones.

Among cities on the Chinese Mainland, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou took the first three seats by Nov. PV registrations. Shanghai was highest-ranking one with over 70,000 vehicles registered in the month, and the Model Y, the Model 3, and the BYD Yuan PLUS served as the top three best-selling models for the megacity.

Beijing, Hangzhou, and Zhengzhou ranked 4th, 5th, and 6th, respectively, all of which logged a Nov. registration volume of over 40,000 units.

Judging from the registrations through the first eleven months of 2023, Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu held the top 3 positions among all cities on the Chinese Mainland. Besides, there were nine cities whose respective Jan.-Nov registrations all stood between 300,000 units and 500,000 units.

The new energy passenger vehicle (NEPV) sector in China recorded a registration volume of 762,617 units last month, soaring 43.24% from the year-ago period, rising 7.48% from a month earlier, and accounting for 39.78% of the country's total PV registrations.

For the first eleven months of this year, the cumulative NEPV registrations across the Chinese Mainland leapt 40.35% year on year to 6,350,864 units, which represented 34.08% share in the overall PV market.

Speaking of the proportion of each powertrain solution, BEVs made up 68.23% of China's NEPV registrations in Nov. The PHEV registrations reached 242,284 units (including 81,536 REEVs) in the month, accounting for 31.77% of the country's total NEPV registrations.

Of the NEPVs registered in Jan.-Nov. 2023, 69% were contributed by BEVs. Meanwhile, the FCV (fuel cell vehicle) segment registered a cumulative volume of only 359 units, 12 units of which were recorded in November.

Regarding Nov. registrations by locally-produced NEPVs, BYD topped other brands with registrations exceeding 210,000 units, reinforcing its overwhelming lead. On December 15, the fire new mid-sized all-electric SUV, the Song L, hit the market with a starting price of 189,800 yuan. Prior to the model's official market launch, the Song L had 8 units registered in November.

Tesla ranked second among brands by Nov. NEPV registrations. With 65,315 vehicles registered across the Chinese Mainland in the month, the U.S. manufacturer scored a year-on-year rise of 5.25%.

Capitalizing on the popularity of the Wuling Binguo and the Hongguang MINIEV, the Wuling brand recorded a registration volume of 49,006 units in November with a month-on-month growth of nearly 7%. In addition, the Wuling Xingguang, the brand’s first sedan model starting at only 88,800 yuan, had around 2,100 units registered in the month.

SERES, the car making partner of Huawei, was credited the No. 8 brand with 18,885 units, 81.34% of which were contributed by the AITO M7.

Outselling by 53 units, XPeng surpassed Leapmotor, which stood at the 10th place with 18,210 vehicles registered in November.

It is noteworthy that BMW held the 16th spot with over 10,948 NEPVs registered in the 11th month of 2023, outperforming Chery, Galaxy, ZEEKR, and NETA. The biggest sales contributor to the German auto giant’s NEV business in the month was the BMW i3.

In November, Tesla's Model Y surpassed BYD's Seagull, securing the top spot among all NEPV models with nearly 50,000 units registered.

On the top 20 NEPV models list by Nov. registrations, there were seven models under the BYD brands. The three models from Li Auto’s L series were all included on the list.

For the perspective of Jan.-Nov. registrations, the top 5 NEPV models were the Model Y, the Dolphin, the Yuan PLUS, the Qin PLUS DM-i, and the Song PLUS DM-i, four of which were from the BYD brand. Despite the relatively late market entry, the BYD Seagull still ranked 7th with over 180,000 units registered as of November 2023.

In November, Shanghai still outdid other cities with 45,064 locally-made NEPVs registered, which accounted for 61.74% of the city's overall PV registrations. During this period, the top five NEPV models in Shanghai were the Tesla Model Y, Model 3, the BYD Yuan PLUS, the Volkswagen ID.3, and the BYD Song PLUS EV.

Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen saw their NEPV registrations all surpass 20,000 units in November.

During the year 2023's first eleven months, there were 12 cities on the Chinese Mainland with over 100,000 domestically-built NEPVs registered each. Of them, Shanghai was the only one to register over 300,000 units.