In November, global registrations of plug-in electric cars increased to a new monthly record level, beating the previous one set in September.

According to EV-Volumes data, shared by researcher Jose Pontes, 1,385,104 new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered globally in November (about 31% more than a year ago), compared to 1,291,000 in September. The market share amounted to 19%.

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Global EV sales expand

More than 12 million plug-in electric cars were registered around the world in 2023 through the end of November, which was more than in all of 2022 (10 million units). Once December’s data is announced, the total volume might reach 13.5 million units.

All-electric car registrations increased by 25% year-over-year to a new record of 952,598, taking about 13% of the global passenger car market.

Meanwhile, plug-in hybrid car registrations increased by 40% (mostly thanks to China), reaching about 432,500 units and roughly 6% of the market.

Now, we are waiting only for the December data and probably another record, north of 1.4 million units.

Plug-in car registrations for the month:

• BEVs: 952,598 (up 25%) and 13% market share
• PHEVs: 432,506 (up 40%) and 6% market share
• Total: 1,385,104 (up 31%) and 19% market share

In the first 11 months of the year, more than 12.1 million plug-in electric cars have been registered around the world, which is more than 16% of the total volume, we estimate.

Plug-in car registrations January-November:

• BEVs: 8,409,092
• PHEVs: 3,708,113
• Total: 12,117,205 (up 38%) and over 16%* market share

* estimated

For reference, in 2022, more than 10 million new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered globally for the very first time. This result will be significantly improved upon in 2023, to more than 13 million units.

Model rank

The Tesla Model Y remained the world’s best-selling plug-in model in November with a massive result of over 115,000 new registrations—far above other models. However, the year-over-year growth of the Model Y has slowed down, amounting to only 13% in November.

Then we can see the BYD Song Plus family (when counting BEVs and PHEVs together) with over 63,000 units and a big comeback of the Tesla Model 3 with 54,327 units (up 15% year-over-year). Fourth was the tiny BYD Seagull (44,603), ahead of several other BYD models.

Top 10 for the month:

1. Tesla Model Y – 115,192
2. BYD Song Plus – 63,416 (11,138 BEVs + 52,278 PHEVs) 
3. Tesla Model 3 – 54,327
4. BYD Seagull – 44,603
5. BYD Dolphin – 41,346
6. BYD Qin Plus – 41,063 (12,089 BEVs + 28,974 PHEVs) 
7. BYD Yuan Plus (aka Atto 3) – 33,076
8. Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV: 24,032
9. Wuling Bingo: 22,772
10. GAC Aion Y – 22,666

* BEV and PHEV versions of the same models were counted together in the source.

After the first 11 months of the year, the Tesla Model Y exceeded one million registrations, while the BYD Song plug-ins almost noted 560,000 units. The Tesla Model 3 is third best, at over 472,000 registrations.

Brand rank

In terms of brands, BYD was the number one in the general plug-in car segment for another month with over 288,000 new registrations (more than half of those were all-electric cars).

Tesla’s new registrations in November exceeded 174,000, while the other brands were, as usual, far behind. The SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture noted 55,350 and BMW with 50,666 was ahead of Volkswagen (47,116).

Top 10 for the month:

1. BYD – 288,633
2. Tesla – 174,574
3. SAIC-GM-Wuling – 55,350
4. BMW – 50,666
5. Volkswagen – 47,116
6. Li Auto – 41,033
7. Geely – 39,475
8. Changan – 38,990
9. GAC Aion – 38,416
10. Mercedes-Benz – 36,562

After the first 11 months of 2023, the step change between BYD (2.55 million) and Tesla (over 1.6 million) became even steeper again. Similarly, the rest of the industry is further and further behind.