Tesla Inc and BYD Co (比亞迪) set fresh sales records in the second quarter, widening their lead as the world’s top-selling clean automakers.
Tesla delivered a record 466,140 vehicles worldwide in results posted on Sunday, outpacing Wall Street estimates. BYD, China’s biggest-selling auto brand, posted its best-ever quarterly sales result of 700,244 new-energy vehicles — half fully electric sales and the other half plug-in hybrids.
Tesla’s results demonstrated that CEO Elon Musk’s vow to chase volume by cutting prices has had its intended effect.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a big beat,” said Ben Kallo of Robert W. Baird in a telephone interview on Sunday. “People were still bracing for another round of price cuts, and this big delivery number makes that less of a risk.”
The deliveries are the most ever in a quarter for Austin-based Tesla, and a 83 percent increase from a year earlier.
The company also managed to trim the gap between production and deliveries — a figure closely watched by analysts — to 13,560 units in the second quarter. In the first quarter, it produced nearly 18,000 more vehicles than it delivered to customers.
Tesla, which sells its vehicles directly to consumers, has a lot of levers to move vehicles. Besides cutting prices across the lineup earlier this year, the company introduced perks, such as three months of free fast-charging in the US for vehicles delivered before June 30, to entice buyers. Analysts have predicted that price cuts would continue into next year.
The company is easily still the largest EV maker in the US, but it is facing fresh competition around the world.
In China — its No. 2 market — the firm has fallen well behind BYD, which has a much fresher lineup and increasingly global ambitions.
Tesla announced last week that it was cutting prices of its premium models in China by more than 4.5 percent, following a decision to hand out cash subsidies to some buyers of its Model 3 vehicles last month.
A closely watched measure of who is leading in sales of purely electric vehicles shows Tesla extended its lead over BYD, even as the Chinese maker continues to grow globally through its affordable offerings.
Still, Shenzhen-based BYD sold a record 251,685 new-energy vehicles last month, and its quarterly sales grew 98 percent from a year earlier. The surge marks a turnaround from a weak first three months of the year.
Smaller Chinese upstart Li Auto Inc (理想) posted a new monthly high of 32,575 deliveries, while Xpeng Inc (小鵬) and Nio Inc (蔚來) reported modest increases.
Last month’s sales “are showing new energy vehicle demand remains pretty strong” despite China’s economic drag, Bloomberg Intelligence autos and EV batteries analyst Joanna Chen said.
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