EV Sales Blog)" draggable="false"> EV Sales Blog)" draggable="false"> Plug-in electric car sales in China – March 2016 (source: EV Sales Blog)

Over 17,500 plug-in electric cars were sold in China last month, with strong year-over-year growth coming in at a tidy 62%; highlighted by the handy individual data points presented by EV Sales Blog (right graph).

The best selling model in March, and in the first quarter, is once again the BYD Tang plug-in hybrid SUV.

BYD is also growing much faster than the industry average - with 7,010 total sales of plug-in cars (e5, e6, Qin EV300 pure electric cars, and Qin, Tang plug-in hybrids). BYD's growth hit 144% in March.

BYD March sales:

Tang – 3,111

– 3,111 e6 – 2,016

– 2,016 Qin – 1,143

– 1,143 e5 – 511

– 511 Qin EV300 - 229

Other noticable results were posted by theEVs with 2,361 sold in March (5,583 YTD) and the, with 1,802 moved in March (4,410 YTD).

Also the Tesla Model S shines really for the first time ever in China, with 1,304 sales last month and nearly 2,000 in Q1 - good enough to set new record this year, and put the company well on pace to exceed its 5,000 2016 goal.

March's result may indicate that Tesla has finally been at least somewhat successful in getting its message to the Chinese consumer, while in the process creating a strong enough demand to overcome the hugely oppressive barriers to selling cars in the country as a 100% foreign importer (and not as a 50/50 JV partner with a local Chinese entity - such as the other major OEMs employ to access volume sales).

Overall the first quarter ends in China with over 43,000 plug-in car sales, compared to less than 28,000 in the U.S.