General Motors brand Wuling has been selling 1,000 of its HongGuang Mini EVs a day, new figures out of China reveal.
A new cabrio version of the HongGuang Mini EV debuted this week at the Shanghai motor show but it is the previous generation that is busting EV sales records.
The HongGuang Mini EV caught media attention in January when it took the title of best-selling EV off the Tesla Model 3 in what was (barely) at the time the world’s largest EV market.
While China’s EV market has since been overtaken by Europe, sales there are still roaring along at a pace.
And even more so for the HongGuang Mini EV, which Wuling sold just shy of 40,000 units in March alone.
In fact, according to figures compiled by José Pontes of EV Sales, it has sold 270,000 of them in the last 270 days – quite a feat.
Mind you, Tesla is not far behind. As we noted in March, with the Model Y now rolling off the factory floor in Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory the Californian EV maker has every chance of selling more than 1,000 Shanghai-made Teslas a day as soon as the Model Y line ramps up.
In March, Tesla sold more than 25,000 Tesla Model 3s and around 10,000 Model Ys. That’s twice as many as it Model Ys sold in February, and given the sticker price for the Teslas is at least 6-7 times that of the tiny Mini EV which sells for up to RMB 38,800 ($A7,750 converted) that is also an impressive task, and one that looks like it will only continue to rise.
Other notable EV models selling well in China include the Great Wall Ora Black Cat, another all-electric city car but one with a strangely incongruous name (in this writer’s mind at least it seems more fluffy kitten than pantheresque, but who are we to say).
Great Wall – which also sells in Australia, although a local spokesperson recently told The Driven there are not yet any EVs in the pipeline – sold 8,500 or so of these in March for the equivalent of around $A13,000, handing it number 4 in the EV sales leaderboard.
The next EV of note – and in this, also for Australia – is the BYD Han EV, of which BYD sold just shy of 8,000 units in March.
This premium electric sedan is available for order via Nexport’s EV Direct direct-to-consumer initiative, which will see as many as 5 new EVs arrive on Australian roads, including we understand a $35,000 BYD e2 hatchback.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model 3 and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.