Volkswagen’s Chinese crown is slipping

Since 2008 Volkswagen had, thanks to its many joint ventures in the country, been the best-selling brand in China.  This changed in Q1/2023, when BYD outsold the German brand, with 440,000 sales, versus Volkswagen’s total of just over 427,000 units.

These are several reasons for this, notably BYD’s increasing range of affordable and technically proficient electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids, and Chinese consumers progressively moving away from legacy to domestic brands. In the first half of 2023, BYD sold nearly 600,000 PHEVs and EVs; Volkswagen sold just under 23,500 EVs in the same period.  Tesla, by comparison, sold 157,000 EVs. This trend continued into October when just over 2 million new cars were registered in China, a 10.2% rise year-on-year, with EVs and PHEVs taking 9.6% and 13.4% share respectively.