At the end of April, Tesla, one of the world's new energy giants, announced its financial report for the first quarter of this year, with a number of important indicators such as sales, revenue, gross profit and net profit declining to varying degrees.
So what is Tesla's performance in the first quarter, and what is the trend of the global new energy market in which it is located?
A few days ago, EV-Volumes released the relevant data of global new energy light vehicles (including passenger cars and light commercial vehicles) in March and the first quarter, and the above two questions can be answered.
Statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, a total of 3.216 million new energy light vehicles were sold worldwide, of which sales in March increased by 19% year-on-year to 1.315 million, which was the third highest monthly performance in the history of the segment, only slightly lower than the 1.385 million and 1.557 million in November and December last year.
At the same time, Tesla's global sales in the first quarter of this year did not increase but declined, selling only 387,000 units, far less than the 423,000 units in the same period last year. It is not difficult to understand that Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the launch of new models may be accelerated due to the delivery volume in the first quarter that is less than expected.
Model Y和Model 3双双下跌
Why is Tesla's performance so in stark contrast to the global new energy market? This can be seen from the list of global best-selling new energy models in March and the first quarter.
As we all know, since its launch, the Model Y has gradually replaced the Model 3 as Tesla's most popular model, and its global deliveries have been increasing (except for the shutdown of the Shanghai Gigafactory in the second quarter of 2022 due to the epidemic).
Model Y sales still reached 264,000 units in the first quarter of this year after several years of growth, but unfortunately there was a year-on-year decline of 5.7%, referring to the data of the same period last year, the decline was roughly 5.7%. Sales fell sharply by 18.1% in February and March, especially during the peak delivery period.
In addition, this year's Model 3 has fallen year-on-year for three consecutive months, resulting in a sharp decline of 20.2% in sales in the first quarter, so Tesla's sales in the first quarter are naturally poor. This is also the first time that the Model 3 has missed the top three global NEV model sales in a single month and quarter at the end of the quarter.
And the Model 3 pulled off the podium was none other than the BYD Qin Plus.
After the launch of the Qin Plus Honor Edition in mid-February this year, its 79,800 yuan DM-i version caused a huge response, which made the car's sales in the Chinese market rush to 50,000 units for the first time in March, surpassing the Model Y to become the sales champion in the Chinese passenger car market that month.
It is precisely because of this that in March, the Qin Plus was able to continuously rank among the top three new energy models in the world, and with the advantage of more than 6,000 units, it ranked third in the first quarter. If the car continues to maintain a strong trend, the Model 3 may not be able to remain on the podium of the top three in the new energy market this year. After all, under the fierce offensive of BYD Song Plus, it has been squeezed to the third place seat in the past two years.
In fact, not only Qin Plus, thanks to the recovery of the Chinese market after the Spring Festival holiday, in March, BYD Seagull, BYD Yuan Plus, BYD Han, BYD Destroyer 05, Aion S, Aion Y, BYD Tang, Changan Lumin and Denza D9 and many other independent new energy models have made great progress in sales and rankings, of which the last 5 are all back on the list, and in terms of ranking, the biggest improvement is the destroyer 05.
Like Qin Plus, the Destroyer 05 Glory Edition also adjusted the starting price to 79,800 yuan in February, so in March, the first full sales month, it achieved a new monthly high of 19,000 units since its launch, and it was also the first time that it broke into the top ten new energy in the world. This also made the cumulative sales of the destroyer 05 soar to 33,000 units in the first quarter, so that it has a place in the cumulative list of global new energy best-selling models for the first time.
In March, the seats of the M7, Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Volkswagen ID.4, Wuling Binguo, Li L7 and Volkswagen ID.3 were moved backwards.
It should be noted that the sales of some of these 6 models have increased, but the increase is not as large as that of the Qin Plus and Destroyer 05, so it has fallen behind. For example, with the recovery of the European new energy market in March, the Volkswagen ID.4 and ID.3 reached more than 10,000 units at the same time, achieving the best results this year.
Europe helped Mercedes-Benz Volvo reach new highs
Judging from the brand list, BYD still firmly occupies the champion of the single month and cumulative list. Relying on the launch of many of its models, the Honor Edition, BYD soared to 287,000 units in March, which is roughly equivalent to its sales in the fourth quarter of last year.
At the peak of deliveries in March this year, Tesla's performance could only be described as "mediocre", with only 168,000 units sold. This figure is not only lower than the 208,000 units in the same period last year, but also lower than the 180,000 units in the same period in 2022. Of course, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and its sales are still more than 3 times that of the BMW behind it.
Compared to the first two giants, BMW and Mercedes-Benz can only be regarded as a drop in the bucket, but in their own right, they have achieved very good results.
Although since the rise of China's new energy in 2021, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have never had any models appear in the TOP20 list of global new energy best-selling models, but due to the large number of their models, the brand sales are still large. For example, in the European new energy market, the BMW i4, BMW iX1, Mercedes-Benz EQA and Mercedes-Benz GLC PHEV are favored by consumers. In China, models such as the BMW i3, BMW iX3 and Mercedes-Benz EQE also received significant discounts.
Among them, the EQA and EQB both sold about 6,000 units, and the GLC PHEV also received about 4,200 units, and Mercedes-Benz's new energy sales in March hit a new high of 38,000 units.
Not only Mercedes-Benz, but also Volvo set a new record of 35,000 units in March, as the EX30, XC60 plug-in hybrid and XC40 continued to sell well in the European market.
In addition to BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, GAC Aion and Toyota were the better brands in March.
With the resumption of the ride-hailing market, GAC Aion's sales in March were able to recover again to more than 30,000 units, which made its ranking soar from 19th in February to 9th.
Toyota's sales in March, while not much improved, saw its best sales ever, putting it ahead of Kia for the first time in recent years.
Toyota's rapid sales growth was mainly due to increased sales of the bZ3 and bZ4X, with the former selling around 5,700 units in China and the latter also earning 6,100 units worldwide. Next, with the successive launch of new energy models such as the bZ3C, Toyota's sales in this segment should continue to increase. It's just that considering the current fierce competition in the market, Toyota needs to speed up the pace of innovation.
It is also worth mentioning that Chang'an Qiyuan, which was at the bottom of the list in March. As a new brand that only launched its first product in the second half of last year, backed by Changan Automobile Group, Changan Qiyuan currently has 3 models on sale, and also set a new high in its own sales in March, and for the first time appeared on the list of global new energy best-selling brands.
However, no one can say who will spend this position next month, after all, Leap, Peugeot and Zeekrypton are all eyeing off the list, ready to break in and replace them.