New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

S

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
KampfAlwin said:
Less than 1k Cybertrucks on the road and yet already showing high failure rate. Whereas over 5000+ Yangwang U8s have been sold, but no reported breakdowns.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Click to expand...

No surprise, Musk himself has admitted before that Tesla has poor quality control and not to buy the cars when production is ramping up. Although clearly “right at the beginning” doesn’t apply now.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

FriedRiceNSpice said:
I remember reading (here on SDF) that Japan's auto industry bet on the wrong horse, deciding to focus investment on hydrogen vehicles instead of EVs. Seems kind of foolish to not play to their strengths (LI batteries) and instead go all in on a much less mature tech with much more unknowns.
Click to expand...

The hydrogen thing was actually a whole of Japanese government strategy

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Hilariously, the Toyota Mirai is now free
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This was combined with former CEO Akio Toyoda’s personal disdain with EVs and for some reason also PHEVs.

Honda’s lack of EV portfolio is simply because they are a smaller company and licensed GM’s platform to save costs, but is having major production problems.

Japan really has not been a leader in Li Batteries since 2010’s and has been steadily losing the market to China and Korea. This has been hand in hand with their decline in consumer electronics market share (driving battery production and design offshore), and also coincident with China’s goals to reduce air pollution spurring the growth of the EV sector)
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
supersnoop said:
The hydrogen thing was actually a whole of Japanese government strategy
Click to expand...

Also remember that Toyota is the head of the Japanese Auto Industry Body.
And guess who advises the government on Auto policy?


supersnoop said:
Hilariously, the Toyota Mirai is now free
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This was combined with former CEO Akio Toyoda’s personal disdain with EVs and for some reason also PHEVs.

Honda’s lack of EV portfolio is simply because they are a smaller company and licensed GM’s platform to save costs, but is having major production problems.
Click to expand...

Traditionally Honda is/was known as an combustion engine company.
 
Lethe

Lethe

Captain
Lethe said:
Q1 2024 sales of Chinese brand vehicles in Australia, plus Tesla, with YoY change:

MG 12,429, up 0.4%
GWM 10,201, up 24.5%
LDV 4,545, down 9.6%
BYD 4,481, up 113.6%
Chery 1,983, N/A
Tesla 12,789, up 22.9%

Telsa is included mostly because its sales provide an indication of the broader "EV potential" of the Australian market (where EV sales are creeping up, but still yet to crack 10% of the total in any given month). Also, all Teslas in Australia come from the Shanghai factory.

BYD is clearly enjoying strong growth as the brand continues to establish itself here and broaden its product portfolio (Atto 3, then Dolphin, most recently Seal). As of February, BYD Australia has said that it plans to introduce four new models over the next twelve months. The first of these is expected to be Seal U in the coming months, while the upcoming ute has also been confirmed for Australia, launching first in PHEV form. I suspect that Leopard 5 may be one of the others, just because it fits so well with Australia's penchant for larger SUVs with off-road pretentions.

Because Chery only launched in Australia in April 2023, we don't have directly comparable month-over-month sales as yet, but the managing director of Chery Australia, Lucas Harris, has been on record as saying that sales in 2023, when the brand recorded an average of 655 units/month over nine months, did not meet expectations. In Q1 2024 Chery Australia recorded an average of 638 sales per month, so I think it is safe to say that sales are continuing to not meet expectations.

LDV's Q1 sales decline owes entirely to a significant shortfall in March. For January and February, LDV was actually tracking slightly ahead (4%) of the same period in 2023. As such it could well be a transitory phenomenon. That said, between both SAIC brands flatlining and Chery struggling, I do wonder if Australia is approaching saturation point for the cheap, value-oriented offerings that currently define most of these brands here, and if JAC arriving with its T9 ute is really going to work out for them. That said, these local independent distributor arrangements can be weird: Citroen is still here despite living off the fumes of imagined sales (29 in Q1 2024). BYD and LDV are the other Chinese brands offered here via independent distributors, while Subaru is the most successful brand operated under this model, with Q1 sales in line with GWM.

Calibration of ADAS systems such as lane centering systems, driver alertness monitor, seems to be emerging as the single most consistent major criticism of Chinese brand vehicles in Australia. I wonder how much of this owes to the fact that road signs, lane markings, etc. are not consistent between nations and require some level of custom tuning, and how much of it is down to different customer expectations. To be fair, ADAS complaints are common for new vehicles here irrespective of their origin, but it seems to be a much larger issue, or at least reported as a much larger issue, amongst Chinese-brand vehicles.

GWM have
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
on their discounts for the Ora EV (read: Good Cat) here. With drive-away pricing from $36,990 for the base model it is comfortably the cheapest EV in the country and really seems to deserve more success than it has earned to date.

A small positive marketing story: by most metrics, Australian Rules Football is the most popular sport in the country, with the Australian Football League (AFL) as its national, top-level competition. This weekend the AFL is operating a 'Gather Round' whereby all matches are played in one location, which this year happens to be my city, Adelaide, South Australia. Earlier today I saw that MG, which is a major sponsor of the Port Adelaide Football Club, had set up a display in Rundle Mall (which is more or less the heart of the city, and sure to get a lot of extra local and interstate foot traffic this weekend associated with Gather Round) with a bright blue MG4 EV that was also being used for some kind of children's football challenge. It struck me as a good use of the marketing budget, reinforcing the association between MG, PAFC and the AFL more broadly. As an indication that this may be a useful brand exercise, consider that Toyota, which towers like a colossus over the Australian vehicle market with 51,738 sales in Q1, is also the "premier sponsor" of the AFL and has its logo plastered all over every game.
Click to expand...

Just an EV addendum to the above.

Top 20 best-selling EVs in Australia, Q1 2024, with manufacturing country of origin:

Tesla Model Y 6835 China
Tesla Model 3 5954 China
BYD Atto 3 2220 China
BYD Seal 1573 China
MG 4 1335 China
BYD Dolphin 688 China
Kia EV6 589 South Korea
Hyundai Kona Electric 502 South Korea
BMW iX1 476 Germany
BMW i4 457 Germany
Volvo XC40 Recharge 444 China
Polestar 2 348 China
Toyota BZ4X 311 Japan
MG ZS EV 295 China
BMW iX3 290 China
Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV 290 United States
GWM Ora 282 China
Mercedes-Benz EQA 258 Germany
Hyundai Ioniq 5 244 South Korea
Kia Niro EV 222 South Korea

BYD may only be the #18 best-selling brand in Q1 2024, but it is clearly the #2 brand in EVs, with sales nearly triple those of its next-closest competitor, MG. It's interesting that MG 4 has almost completely cannibalised MG ZS EV sales since launch. By all accounts MG 4 is a much better EV, but ZS has the "SUV" badge, and the broader Australian market is now dominated by such vehicles. BZ4x numbers are surprisingly strong considering Toyota only launched it here a couple of weeks ago. I believe that Toyota Australia has said previously that they have only been allocated 1500 units for the entire year, however, so if true that pace won't be sustained. I suspect that Ioniq 5 would be selling at MG4/Seal levels or better if Hyundai could actually supply them, but it seems they can't, while even its Kia twin (EV6) is at least in the game. GWM Ora is still notable for its odd lack of sales. The price cuts suggest that GWM Australia are willing to chase sales and not just have it sit as a token EV offering. At the same time, I've seen numerous TV ads recently for GWM vehicles, including the just-launched Tank 500, but nothing for the Ora.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top