Tesla sits firmly as the leader of sales in electric vehicles after the surge in production capacity during 2020, though the overall market shares have slightly declined for the company, and various automotive manufacturers have been catching up at the same time. Let us take a look at the top 5 sales leaders for 2020.
Here we go.
A total of 3.12 million PHEVs were sold in the world during 2020, of which BEVs accounted for 2.14 million units, equaling roughly 68%, and Tesla is the only competitor in the list with all BEV models, let alone the fact that it is also the leader of this battle. However, it is worth noting that despite a substantial increase in production capacity and sales, Tesla had sustained a 1% decrease in market shares for the PHEV market, which has now arrived at 16%. It currently maintains a share of 23% for the BEV market.
The strongest pursuer in the PHEV market is Volkswagen, who has risen to 2nd place from 6th place a year ago, and now obtains 13% of market shares. In addition, Volkswagen’s sales in PHEV had surpassed that of Tesla during the fourth quarter of 2020, and took the champion title for the quarter with 190K units, which was almost 10K more than Tesla. Volkswagen is very likely to become the sales champion for PHEVs in 2021.
SAIC Motor enjoyed surging sales since the second half of 2020 from its ultra-affordable Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, and managed to surpass the accumulated sales of both Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf, before arriving at 3rd place. SAIC has also slightly exceeded the sales of Volkswagen in the BEV market.
In terms of models, Tesla Model 3 is the absolute dominator, with 365K units sold throughout the year, and occupy a whopping 12% market share, where other models are accounting for less than 5%. Following closely behind are Wuling Hongguang Mini EV and Renault Zoe, then Model Y at 4th place, and Hyundai Kona EV at 5th place.
After a subversive year in 2020, an increasing number of traditional automotive manufacturers will be trying to catch up in the race during 2021; whether the leading position of Tesla in the BEV market will be challenged is worth observing.
 (Cover photo source: Unplugged Performance)