BYD, Li Auto break sales records again as pent-up demand for EVs benefits top Chinese marques
- Monthly deliveries for each of Li L7, Li L8 and Li L9 surpassed 10,000 units in August, as Li Auto set a monthly sales record for a fifth month in a row
- BYD reports sales increase of 4.7 per cent, rewrites monthly delivery record for a fourth consecutive month
Li Auto, a Beijing-headquartered premium EV maker seen as the nearest domestic competitor to US carmaker Tesla in China, handed 34,914 cars to customers in August, beating a previous all-time high of 34,134 EV deliveries in July. It has now set a monthly sales record for a fifth month in a row.
“We delivered a robust performance in August with monthly deliveries for each of Li L7, Li L8 and Li L9 surpassing 10,000 vehicles, as an increasing number of family users recognise and trust our products,” Li Xiang, the marque’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement on Friday. “The popularity of these three Li ‘L series’ models has solidified our sales leadership position in both China’s new-energy vehicle and premium vehicle markets.”
Shenzhen-based BYD, which does not compete with Tesla directly but dethroned it as the world’s largest EV assembler last year, sold 274,386 EVs last month, an increase of 4.7 per cent from 262,161 car deliveries in July. The carmaker rewrote its monthly delivery record for a fourth consecutive month in August, it said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Friday.
A price war initiated by Tesla late last year came to an end in May, unleashing a wave of demand from customers who had sat out the bargains bonanza in the hope that steeper discounts were on the way, making top carmakers like Li Auto and BYD the top beneficiaries.