In May, sales of plug-in electric cars in China amounted to 103,674 (estimated by EV Sales Blog), which is a lot on one hand, but the year-over-year growth dropped to just 2% - the lowest level in years.

Normally, we would be worried about the slow progress, but the New Energy Vehicle market is part of a broader picture and the general automotive market in China is shrinking. Sales of all cars decreased in May by a massive 17%!

The positive outcome of such results is higher and higher plug-in market share of 6.6%.

After five months of 2019, total sales exceed 470,000 at an average market share of 5.6%.

Plug-in electric car sales in China – May 2019

The two most popular models for the month and for the year in China are BAIC EU-Series (7,079 in May) and BYD Yuan (6,044 in May).

Here are the top five YTD:

BYD Yuan BEV – 6,044 (36,918 YTD)

BAIC EU-Series - 7,079 (31,160 YTD)

BYD e5 - 3,173 (22,302 YTD)

BYD Tang PHEV – 2,458 (21,178 YTD)

Geely Emgrand EV - 3,348 (19,250 YTD)

May brings us several surprises. One of them is very high sales of Denza EV in May - 1,859! The Nissan Sylphy ZE (Nissan LEAF derivative) set a new personal record of 3,335. Another great foreign plug-in result was noted by the Volkswagen Passat GTE - 3,293, which with 12,139 YTD is the 11th top plug-in in China YTD. Hard to imagine.

Also, the plug-in hybrid BMW 530Le in China does well - 2,878 sales and #17 YTD. There are no official numbers for the Tesla Model 3, so EV Sales Blog guesses at 2,000 in May and 7,392 YTD.

Source: EV Sales Blog