Tesla Had Best Month Ever in September, BYD Had an Even Better One
BYD pulled ahead of Tesla, expected to stay there until at least December
In September 2022, Tesla delivered 190,255 electric vehicles globally – the company’s best month on record – while Chinese rival BYD delivered 192,648 electric vehicles during the same period, topping Tesla and posting its best month on record at the same time.
From January 2021 through September 2022, BYD’s deliveries increased gradually and almost consistently month-over-month while Tesla’s deliveries – following their typical sawtooth pattern – increased gradually quarter-over-quarter.
Cumulatively, from January 2021 through September 2022, Tesla delivered 1.848 million electric vehicles to customers globally while BYD delivered 1.769 million.
Given the cyclicality of Tesla’s deliveries (which tend to bottom-out at the start and peak at the end of each quarter) we expect BYD will pull ahead of Tesla in October and November 2022 on a cumulative basis but the ultimate victor will be determined in December when a wave of year-end Tesla deliveries reach customers.
Worth noting – 50% of BYD’s electric vehicle sales in 2022 YTD and 45% in 2021 were PHEVs while 100% of Tesla sales over the same period were BEVs.
This important distinction is evident when we look at how much battery capacity (in watt-hours) each automaker deployed onto roads in newly-sold electric vehicles over the same period.
For example, in September 2022 alone, Tesla deployed a booming 13.9 GWh of battery capacity onto roads globally versus 6.7 GWh deployed by BYD.
Moreover, from January 2021 through September 2022, Tesla deployed a staggering 132.9 GWh onto roads worldwide, more than double the 65.6 GWh deployed by BYD over the same period.
Consequentially, from January 2021 through September 2022, Tesla consumed roughly twice as much lithium, 17-times as much nickel and four-times as much cobalt as BYD, according to Adamas Intelligence data.
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