Registrations of locally-made passenger vehicles (PVs) in China saw a double-digit decrease year on year in September, but the registrations of new energy vehicles hit a new high and accounted for nearly one fifth of the total monthly registrations.

According to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), the insurance registrations of locally-made PVs in China totaled 1,653,581 vehicles, down by 13.4% from a year ago and up by 8% from the previous month.

Among all vehicles registered in September, 772,279 were cars, 81,906 MPVs, 778,934 SUVs and 20,462 minibuses. 1,601,298 were for non-operation usage while only 1,204 were for operation. The other 51,073 vehicles were registered for renting.

For the first nine months of this year, the insurance registrations of locally-built PVs in the biggest automobile market grew 16.2% year on year to 14,722,838 vehicles.

The combined September registrations of the top 20 brands accounted for 78% of the total monthly registrations, two percentage points fewer than the share in August. Compared to the performance of the same month last year, 11 out of the top 20 brands saw year-on-year registrations decline while 7 brands registered fewer vehicles than August.

Tesla went back to the list with a total of 52,045 vehicles registered in September, skyrocketing 378% year on year and 1757% month on month. Tesla said in its quarterly results release that China remained its main export hub, and it seems a routine for the American automaker to export most Shanghai-made vehicles in the first two months of a quarter to other countries. For the last month of a quarter, Shanghai-made vehicles are mainly for local customers. So that’s why we saw a sharp registration increase from August (2,802) to September.

There were more local vehicle brands on the September top brands list than August list. Thanks to Wuling’s rising to the fifth, 2 out of the top 5 brands were local ones, one more than August list. Haval jumped two spots to the 10th, becoming the fifth local brand on the top 10 list.

Among all foreign brands, Honda replaced Toyota, becoming the second most registered foreign brand in September in China. Nissan, BMW, Buick, Mercedes Benz, Audi and Hyundai all dropped in ranking compared with August. Cadillac fell out of the top 20 list to the 22nd.

Fewer changes were on the top 20 brands list by year-to-date insurance registrations. Tesla returned to the list thanks to its September registrations while Chevrolet, one member on the Jan.-Aug. list, disappeared from the Jan.-Sept. list.

On the top 20 models list by September insurance registrations, the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV rose to the second, outnumbering the Lavida, which had been a long-time runner-up, and only 3,754 fewer than the most registered locally-made passenger model, the Sylphy, which accounted for more then half of Nissan’s monthly registrations. The other Chinese-branded model among the top 5 models was the Haval H6, whose ranking descended from the fourth on August list to fifth.

33,029 Tesla Model Y were registered in September, ranking fourth by monthly volume and exceeding that of the Model 3, whose monthly registrations were nearly 20,000 vehicles.

By Jan.-Sept. registrations, the top 9 models remained the same as the list of the first eight months. The XR-V jumped three spots to the fourteenth and the RAV4 entered into the list again.

In the NEV segment, the insurance registrations in September nearly tripled (up by 190%) from a year ago and jumped 41.78% versus the volume of August to 324,474 vehicles. Notably, NEVs took up 19.6% of the total monthly insurance registrations, 5.6 percentage points more than the share of August.

In the first nine months, a total of 1,756,106 NEVs were registered in the country, representing a ratio of 12% of the year-to-date registrations of all vehicles.

By monthly NEV registrations, Tesla’s ranking soared from the twentieth in August to the second, surpassing Wuling. ORA from Great Wall Motor fell from the third to the seventh. Among all local startups, Li Auto had its ranking down from the sixth in August to the fourteenth. NIO jumped three spots to the eighth while XPeng rose to the ninth. There was a new member on the monthly brand list by NEV registrations. That is Buick, which registered 3,462 NEVs in September.

BYD turned out to be the brand with the highest year-to-date NEV registrations volume, surpassing Wuling, the champion by the first eight months’ registrations. Volkswagen rose to the seventh, outnumbering NIO by only 382 vehicles.

Tesla occupied two of the top 3 NEV models by September registrations while BYD also had two models among the top 5, thanks to the BYD Song PLUS DM-i’s jumping to the fifth. But the BYD Qin PLUS DM-i was the only one with month-on-month decrease (7.28%) among the top 5 models. 

Apart from a new member, there seemed no changes on the Jan.-Sept. list from Jan.-Aug. list. The new comer is the BYD Song PLUS DM-i. The Tesla Model 3 was the second most registered NEV model in the first nine months of this year, which was different from the September list.