New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

China's autonomous electric mining trucks:

Three automakers from China are building factories in Brazil to produce NEVs: BYD, Great Wall Motor, and Chery. From the New York Times:

Chinese Car Giants Rush Into Brazil With Dreams of Dominating a Continent​

As the likes of Ford and Mercedes retreat, Great Wall Motor and BYD are building factories and bringing affordable EVs and hybrids to one of the world’s biggest markets.

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tphuang said:

BYD is already a top 5 global automaker by sales for this year. At least get this right, okay?


fundamentally, China has a very competitive market. At start of this year, AITO was struggling for sales. You can see the numbers before M8 came out. It really wasn't good. Same with Stelato. The numbers weren't good. Now, HIMA scored a hit with M8 and it's priced very well. However, China is a very competitive market and we will see more models from competition coming out that will eat into M8/M9 sales figures.

As for Bao5/8 using HIMA ADAS, just consider that those two models aren't exactly outselling Denza models. So while Huawei is the current market leader in AI for EVs, there is a lot that goes into whether models will succeed or not. There are plenty of models using HW ADS solutions that have not sold well.

In fact, HIMA right now only has 2 hit models: M8 and M9. So, it's the leader of large SUV. That's all we can say about HIMA success based on numbers.

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I can accept all others, but M8 is 400k segment at a run rate of 200k+ per year and M9 is 550k at a run rate of around 150k in its second year. Besides, Maextro S800 has over 10k firm orders with over 1000k average. Those segments had been in the BBA printing press ("the check from China") until those 3 models have cracked the monopoly. All other Chinese brands have tried with marginal results at best. Here is the kicker: the success of Lexus started from LS400 about 35 years ago and Lexus was the only luxury brand that has established itself against BB in US since LS400 was introduced in 1989. All other so-called luxury brands have faded. Since Audi A6 was introduced in 1994 and bet its farm in Le Mans 24 in 2000, Audi had been creeping into the ranks of BB and Lexus. What took Audi to surpass Lexus on a global basis was its huge success in China, until China NEV rise and HIMA M9/M8/S800 production. In US it is BBL while in China it is BBA, as first-tier luxury brands. In the minds of automotive people in China, cracking BBA was always a pipe dream. Not even first 2 years of Tesla could crack that perception. Until now, you are still in self-denial of this HIMA cracking BBA miracle in the 300K+ luxury segments. I guess I have to throw my hands up ...

4Runner said:

I can accept all others, but M8 is 400k segment at a run rate of 200k+ per year and M9 is 550k at a run rate of around 150k in its second year. Besides, Maextro S800 has over 10k firm orders with over 1000k average. Those segments had been in the BBA printing press ("the check from China") until those 3 models have cracked the monopoly. All other Chinese brands have tried with marginal results at best. Here is the kicker: the success of Lexus started from LS400 about 35 years ago and Lexus was the only luxury brand that has established itself against BB in US since LS400 was introduced in 1989. All other so-called luxury brands have faded. Since Audi A6 was introduced in 1994 and bet its farm in Le Mans 24 in 2000, Audi had been creeping into the ranks of BB and Lexus. What took Audi to surpass Lexus on a global basis was its huge success in China, until China NEV rise and HIMA M9/M8/S800 production. In US it is BBL while in China it is BBA, as first-tier luxury brands. In the minds of automotive people in China, cracking BBA was always a pipe dream. Not even first 2 years of Tesla could crack that perception. Until now, you are still in self-denial of this HIMA cracking BBA miracle in the 300K+ luxury segments. I guess I have to throw my hands up ...

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actually, we do not know for sure about things like "firm orders", because those can get changed to order models later. What we do know is monthly sales and weekly registrations. This past week, sales for S800 was 110.

Su-7u was getting several hundred per week when it first got launched. So, it is in fact not accurate to say "All other Chinese brands are marginal".

Here is Su-7 ultra in May with 2400 sales

here is Su-7 ultra in its first few weeks. Quite a few weeks with > 500 sales
.

As for the stuff about BBA, AITO M8 & M9 have been very successful as I said above, but they are certainly not the only factor in the weakness facing BBA.

In fact, I wrote about the demise of BBA sales in China in September last year due to the collapsing numbers in summer time

Even then, we were seeing sales weakness from 56E

Keep in mind that this was happening before direct Sedan options came to the market like S9, Z9 & ET9 and such.

Which points to just how profound the effect of Su-7 on the luxury sedan market was last year. It not only overtook Model 3, but also had huge effect on BBA and Porsche sales. You can take a look at the Porsche sales numbers last year in China to see just what kind of affect Su-7 had on the market.

And again, Xiaomi Su-7 deliveries really didn't get started until April of 2024. That's right before 56E started seeing weakness.

Even if we discuss SUVs, Li Auto's L7/8/9 were the first Chinese options to really win shares against BBA. Of course, M9 was an even bigger game changer. But even know, Li Auto sales are still quite high. So, it would be inappropriate to dismiss what they have achieved.

supersnoop said:

So your dad gets his Chinese EV news from FLG, got it, lol.

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Well, he did say that he just kept scrolling through YouTube without looking into things much so....yeah probably FLG.

First half 2025 retail sales of NEV in China