How Do the Best Selling EVs Compare To Tesla?

How Do the Best Selling EVs Compare To Tesla?

What are the world's best selling EVs overall. There is a table from CleanTechnica that shows EV vehicle sales for January of 2022. Here we see the top selling EVs for plugin EVs, including hybrids. This is a marketing twist and hybrids really shouldn't be included, but they are. Here is the list:

* Tesla Model Y: 32,700
* Wuling HongGuang Mini EV: 26,682
* BYD Qin Plus PHEV: 18,449
* BYD Song Pro/Plus PHEV: 16,415
* Tesla Model 3: 15,460
* Li Xiang One EREV: 12,268
* Volkswagen ID.4: 10,635
* BYD Dolphin: 10,602
* BYD Han EV: 10,057
* Chery QQ Ice Cream: 9,984

These are the top 10 overall that I've listed. Tesla makes BEVs, which are engineless cars. And that is a true EV. The Tesla Model Y tops the list with just over 32,000 units, which seems a little low. Didn't Giga Shanghai make that many Model Y's in January? This doesn't add up.

The other car sales sound about right, so I'm not sure about the accuracy of this data. The Tesla Model Y is still #1. At #2 is the Wuling HongGuang Mini EV at around 27,000 units. This is a very small car and is not very safe. This is the only other EV to hit volume production and is doing so at a profit. GM owns a share in this at around $50 per vehicle sold.

Next is the BYD Qin Plus PHEV and the BYD Song Pro/Plus PHEV. These vehicles are hybrid models. But they aren't at volume production yet. Interesting that even with hybrid vehicles, that BYD has not been able to reach volume production yet.

Next Spots

The Tesla Model 3 is in the 5th spot at 15,460. This is a strange number and seems really low. Tesla should have sold about double this number. However, perhaps this article only included China sales, but that wasn't called out specifically. The rest of the EVs and hybrids seems to be accurate.

After all of that, the first BEV after Tesla is the Volkswagen ID.4. It does undercut Tesla in price, but doesn't have nearly what the Tesla Model Y has. VW is a brand that probably should have used LFP batteries to save costs. Europe needs lower cost EVS, so VW may try to tap in a low cost EV segment.

The next closest to volume production is the BYD Dolphin. This is a very low cost EV, starting at around $16,000 and priced to the mass market. They are at about halfway to volume production. This is a very basic small vehicle, but BYD still struggles to get to volume production even for this small and simple vehicle. The market is not yet saturated, so this move doesn't make much sense to me. The BYD Han EV is doing the same numbers as the Dolphin...

The Chery QQ Ice Cream vehicle seems to be doing well and is a competitor to the Wuling. This vehicle is smaller and cheaper at around $5,000. However, it is a death trap with minimal safety... The rest of the vehicles are at a small scale and Tesla continues to dominate.

Will any other companies reach volume production with a pure EV? Will VW be able to move into fully BEVs?

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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.

Image Credit, Tesla Economist, Screenshot