In the January-August period, BYD was No. 1 in the NEV market with a 34.6 percent share, while Tesla was No. 3 with 6.5 percent.
BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) still had the largest share of China's new energy vehicle (NEV) market last month, with Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) moving up one spot in the ranking as it gained share.
BYD sold 379,596 passenger NEVs at retail in China in August, continuing to top the ranking with a 37.0 percent share, according to data released yesterday by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
The company is the only one with more than a 30 percent share of China's NEV market and last month's share was higher than July's 35.5 percent.
BYD's retail sales in August were up 57.1 percent from 241,592 in the same month last year, according to the CPCA.
BYD released figures earlier this month showing it sold a record 373,083 NEVs in August, up 35.97 percent year-on-year and up 8.97 percent from July. The figure is for wholesale sales and includes both passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
China's passenger NEVs sold a record 1,027,000 units at retail in August, the first time in history that they have exceeded 1 million, up 43.2 percent from a year ago and up 17 percent from July, CPCA data released on September 9 showed.
Tesla's retail sales in China were 63,456 vehicles in August, down 1.9 percent from a year ago, but its share improved to 6.2 percent from 5.3 percent in July.
Tesla now sits in third place in the CPCA's monthly NEV retail sales ranking, regaining ground on Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI).
In July, Li Auto was third in China's NEV retail sales ranking with a 5.8 percent share.
In China, NEVs include battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and fuel cell vehicles. BYD and Li Auto both make PHEVs and BEVs, while Tesla only makes BEVs.
Tesla China sold 86,697 vehicles in August, including 23,241 for export, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.
The 63,456 vehicles it sold in China in August was a new high for this year, although it was lower than the 64,694 vehicles sold in the same month last year.
Tesla has a factory in Shanghai that produces the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, both for deliveries to local customers and as an export hub for it.
Tesla's pattern is to produce cars for export in the first half of the quarter and for the local market in the second half, it previously said.
Geely's NEV retail sales in August were 74,082 units, up 66.0 percent year-on-year, and it continued to rank second with a 7.2 percent share, up from 6.5 percent in July.
In the January-August period, BYD's retail sales of NEVs in China were 2,079,858 units, up 27.8 percent year-on-year, to take first place with a 34.6 percent share.
Geely's NEV retail sales for the period were 437,614 units, up 98.8 percent year-on-year, to take second place with a 7.3 percent share.
Tesla's January-August retail sales in China were 388,000 units, down 0.6 percent year-on-year, and third with a 6.5 percent share.
In the overall passenger car market, including traditional fuel vehicles, BYD topped the retail rankings in August with a 19.9 percent share, up from 18.1 percent in July.
Geely was second with a 7.1 percent share in August with retail sales of 136,184 units, up 7.7 percent year-on-year.
FAW-Volkswagen was third with a 6.7 percent share in August with retail sales of 128,412 units, down 17.7 percent year-on-year.
In the January-August period, BYD ranked first in China's passenger car retail market share with 15.4 percent, while FAW-Volkswagen was second with a 7.5 percent share and Geely third with about 7.5 percent.
BYD raises 2024 sales target to 4 million units, analyst says