Thursday, March 15, 2018

China February 2018


Image result for 2018 BYD Tang
The imposing new BYD Tang, coming to Chinese streets in a few months


The NEV Games – Stage 2: BYD’s Revenge

February is traditionally the slowest selling month in China, but with sales around 34,000 units, there’s not much to complain about, numbers were up 88% YoY, making this by far the best February ever.

The PEV share dropped slightly, to 1.3%, a smidge below the previous month (1.4%) and a step below the 2.1% of 2017, but on the bright side, from now on, sales are expected to pick up significantly as the year advances, with the 2018 PEV share expected to end at around 3%.

Last month, the Chinese OEMs represented roughly 40% of all PEVs registered globally, an impressive number, especially considering that February is the slowest month in the Chinese PEV market.

With 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, as foreign brands only had 3% of PEV registrations last month. Of this (very small) cake, 2% belonged to BMW, while the other manufacturers, Tesla included, divided the remaining 1%.

In February, the main news were the surprisingly low sales of the BAIC EC-Series, with only 4,120 registrations, dragging down with it the mothership BAIC, allowing its nemesis BYD to pay back the defeat it had in the previous month, all while dethroning the Beijing brand from the 2018 Best Selling Brand position.


Here’s February Top 5 Best Selling models individual performance:

Image result for 2018 BYD Song DM 
#1 – BYD Song PHEV: Build Your Dreams (BYD) current star product had 4,481 registrations in February, underlining a good start of the year. If the 2018 Best Selling PHEV title seems to be destined to stay with it, one questions if BYD’s “Model Y” can also reach the sales level of the BAIC EC-Series. Maybe, maybe not, consistency seems to be BYD’s forte, so if the EC-Series goes into a series of uninspired performances...Who knows?

Image result for 2018 BAIC EC-Series 
#2 – BAIC EC-Series: After winning the Best-Selling status for six months in a row, the EC-Series had a disappointing February, having registered just 4,120 units last month. Sure, 4000 units should be enough to give it a podium place on the Global February Best Selling PEVs, but when you reach almost 16,000 registrations in a month, 4000 seems like you’re not trying hard enough…It’s a bit like Lionel Messi, when you get people used to hat-tricks & other magic numbers during the 90 minutes of the game, if you just offer the assistance for the victory goal, people think you are being lazy…Anyway, the little EV continues to be disruptive in the Chinese market, leading it by a large distance over the Second Placed BYD Song PHEV.

Related image 
#3 – BYD Qin PHEV: The most common plug-in in China had another good performance in February, with 3,009 units, being BYD’s “Model 3” sixth consecutive “3 to 4 thousand units/month” result (Talk about consistency!). This is another of BYD’s hard-working Oompa-Loompa, sure, they do not wow the world with 15,000 units/month peak performances, like the EC-Series does, but on the other hand, they get s*** things done. In a way, it’s a bit like Ronaldo, while Messi amazes the world with his magic and wins the popular vote, at the end of the day, the Real Madrid striker takes home the awards, just like BYD did in the last 3 years.

Image result for 2018 JAC iEV7S
#4 – JAC iEV7S/E: JAC is one of the EV pioneers in China, selling plug-ins since 2010, and now with its iEV7S/E Crossover, it’s back at the game, registering 2,831 units last month. With a competitive price of USD 26,000 before incentives, this is a vehicle targeted at trendy urbanites that for some reason can’t reach a BYD Song or Roewe’s eRX5, getting in return a good-looking compact vehicle (Kia Soul-sized), with just enough zoom (114 hp) to avoid making it feel underpowered.

Image result for 2018 Chery eQ 
#5 – Chery eQ: Chery was one of the Chinese brands to bet early in plug-ins, having won the models title three times in a row (2011, ’12, ’13), with its tiny QQ3 EV, now the automaker is trying to regain relevance with the eQ, the spiritual (and material) successor to the QQ3, having registered 2,753 units in February, allowing it to collect a Top 5 position last month. A vehicle marketed to city dwellers, for USD 24,000 before incentives, you get a funky city EV, with the 22kWh battery providing just enough range (200 kms / 125 miles NEDC), to cover the needs of the urban jungle.

 Image result for 2018 Wuling E100


Outside the Top 5, and even in a slow selling month, there are a couple of models with positive performances, like the SAIC Wuling E100, that after a dismal January (only 80 deliveries), registered 601 units, allowing it to return to the Top 20. Better yet did its direct competitor Zhi Dou D2 EV, registering 893 units, a far cry from the meager 130 deliveries of January, pulling it to #12 in the yearly ranking.

On a not so positive tone, the BYD Tang only delivered 204 units, its worst performance in all three years in the market, the most likely reason for this sudden drop is the fact that a new one is announced for this year.

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, after losing in January by some 1600 units to BAIC, BYD had its revenge in February, beating the c*** out of Beijing Auto almost doubling sales of its direct competitor in that month (8,200 units vs 4,400), allowing it to recover the yearly leadership, with 24% share, 4 percent ahead of BAIC (20%).

But we are only on the second game of a 12-round final, so buckle up and bring the popcorn, because it will be an entertaining race until December between these two.

In Third Place we also have a close race, with the Shanghai-based Roewe (11%) being closely followed by JAC (10%), so there’s more to look at, in the Chinese NEV (New Energy Vehicles, aka PEV) games than just BYD vs BAIC.


Pl
China
February
2018
%
1
BAIC EC-Series
4120
11990
19
2
BYD Song PHEV
4418
7099
11
3
JAC iEV7 S/E
2831
6423
10
4
BYD Qin PHEV
3009
6348
10
5
Chery eQ  
2753
4149
7
6
SAIC Roewe eRX5 PHEV
1187
3404
5
7
SAIC Roewe i6 PHEV
1071
3159
5
8
JMC E200
1594
3094
5
9
BYD Tang
204
1293
2
10
Changan Benni EV 
578
1258
2
11
Geely Emgrand EV
581
1047
2
12
Zhidou D2 EV
893
1023
2
13
GAC Trumpchi GE3
442
978
2
14
Hawtai EV160
335
942
1
15
SAIC Roewe eRX5 BEV
374
856
1
16
BAIC EX-Series

767
1
17
JMC E100
504
682
1
18
SAIC Wuling E100
601
681
1
19
BMW X1 PHEV e)
320
670
1
20
Zotye E200
107
608
1
Others
8043
7319

TOTAL
33965
63784



5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hi Jose, the January report showed almost 35K for China, but based on the current figures it looks like it was below 30K. Were the Jan sales overestimated?
    Btw, you're doing a great job with this blog, thanks a lot!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you on the kind words, regarding the January numbers, one of the reasons was that i had to lower Tesla estimates significantly.

      Delete
  3. Whatever happened to Tesla? Not in the top 20?

    ReplyDelete