Chinese EV Sales Grew 38% In 2013, Doing Much Better In 2014

The Chinese EV market saw a 38% year-on-year increase in unit sales in 2013, as compared to 2012, according to the most recent figures — for a total of 17,642 EVs sold in the market in 2013. In 2012, total EV sales were 12,791 units.

Given how enormous the Chinese auto-market is, though, that means that EVs only captured a 0.08% share. Certainly not a significant percentage, to put it lightly. Makes it easy to see why the government there is rolling out better EV subsidies.

Those figures look like they’re going to be easily eclipsed this year, though, as sales this year have quite a bit better — over 7,209 EVs have been sold in just the first four months of the year, for a market-share of 0.11%. With generous corporate and consumer subsidies set to kick-in in the near future, the sales should continue to improve.

Perhaps they’ll climb as high as 25,000 by the end of the year?

EV Sales provides more:

Based on certified data and past performances, the presumed Top 5 had plenty of changes regarding (the previous year’s) ranking, with a new leader, the BYD Qin, selling 3,294 units and collecting 46% on the market, which is also on its way to obliterate Chery’s QQ3 EV yearly record (5,305 units in 2012). One could say that the Qin is shaking things up, eh?

The Chery QQ3 EV dropped to #2 by a great margin, selling roughly 1,600 units, followed by the BYD e6, up one position and doubling sales (881 registrations) compared to a year ago (is it the Qin-factor spreading to the older e6?), while the JAC J3 EV dropped two positions to #4, with some 800 sales.

So, essentially, the EV sales in 2013 in a country of 1.36 billion (China) were only just slightly higher than double the sales in a country of 5 million (Norway) — 17,642 compared to 7,882. Really drives home the disparity in sales between the two, doesn’t it. The markets/environments are of course quite different, but no doubt lessons could be learned.

With regard to the relatively fast adoption of EVs in Norway, the main drivers are hard to ascertain exactly, but there are a number of factors that no doubt contribute, including: strong incentives, awareness, good infrastructure, and negative incentives.

For a detailed breakdown of these factors and others I recommend you read: Top-Selling Cars In Norway Now Electric Cars (Two Months In A Row) — 4 Reasons Why.

Image Credit: BYD