There are more electric and electrified choices in the car market than ever. Of the 2,500 car models available around the globe last year, 630 were battery-electric. Despite the huge number of choices that consumers have, they disproportionately flocked to just a few vehicles. Of those 600-odd options, just five vehicles made up around 20% of the total global EV sales last year—and I bet you can guess at least two of them.
Leading the group, unsurprisingly, is the Tesla Model Y. Statistics from the International Energy Agency show that the Model Y made up nearly 8% of all battery-electric vehicle sales. On its heels was the Model 3 with around 3.6% of the total market share. After that are three Chinese EVs with Tesla-like traction: the $9,700 Geely Geome Xingyuan (3.5%), Wuling HongGuang Mini (3.1%), and BYD Seagull (3.0%).
View Price on AmazonYou've probably never heard of the Geely or Wuling models before, and that's okay. But these models have something drastically different than the two Teslas taking up first place: they're extremely affordable. All three vehicles start at the equivalent of under $10,000 in China. The Geely, which offers as much as a 40 kWh battery pack and 155 miles of range, starts at $9,700. The BYD Seagull, which starts at $8,000, offers similar specs on its top-tier trims. And the cheapest of the bunch, the Wuling, offers a tiny 26.5 kWh battery pack and 118 miles of range (just not at its starting price of $6,500). That's a pretty big cost delta when you consider that the cheapest Model Y is $39,990 in the States (and $36,700 in China).
China's affordable string of cars is nothing new. There's been an ongoing price war for a while across Chinese automakers, but the fact that these three contenders managed to rank amongst Tesla is pretty big feat in itself, especially when you consider what they're packing under the hood. But one interesting fact called out by the IEA is that 30% of plug-in vehicles sold in China start at a cost of below $20,000. Over in the U.S., only about 20% of EVs have a base cost of under $40,000.
Source: insideevs.com
