China’s leading electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, BYD, on Tuesday said it sold a record 526,409 fully electric cars in the final quarter of 2023, outpacing Elon Musk’s Tesla, which shipped a record of 494,989 vehicles, in global electric-car sales.
The Chinese automaker said it sold 190,754 EVs in December, taking its total for the last three months of the year to a record 526,409 vehicles, 60 percent higher than the same period in 2022.
Tesla said it delivered a combined 494,989 EVs in October, November and December, an almost 20 percent increase on the same period in 2022 and a quarterly record.
While the U.S. automaker’s year-end sales push mostly paid off, helping it deliver 1.8 million vehicles this year, it fell short of CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious 2 million annual internal target. However, it is still ahead of BYD for the whole year. The Chinese firm delivered 3.02 million vehicles, including about 1.4 million plug-in hybrid EVs, in 2023.
