Global Plug-In Car Sales November 2021: Massive Record Over 720,000

Plug-ins are leaving non-rechargeable hybrids in the dust.

By: Mark Kane

Jan 3, 2022 at 8:43am ET

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Global passenger plug-in electric car sales not only continue to increase quickly but reached a new all-time record in November.

According to EV-Volumes data, over 721,000 new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered during the month, which is 72% more than a year ago and a new monthly high. The previous record was set in September 2021: over 685,000.

The market share increased to 11.5% (a new record) and the majority (72%) were battery electric vehicles. 518,000 battery-electric cars sold is a new monthly record.

Plug-in car sales:

BEVs: about 518,000 and 8.1% share
PHEVs: about 203,000 and 3.4% share
Total: 721,456 (up 72% year-over-year) and 11.5% share

See more of our sales reports for the month November 2021.

Plug-ins are now leaving non-rechargeable hybrids in the dust, as 632,000 hybrids were registered in November. The growth of hybrid car sales is also slowing down from a year-to-date average of 53% year-over-year to just 10% in September, 10% in October and 14% in November.

Nonetheless, the overall xEV (BEVs, PHEVs, HEVs) sales are up, and in November represented 22% of the market.

Sales are expected to further expand, reaching new all-time highs in the final month of the year.

Global Plug-In Electric Car Sales – November 2021

So far this year, passenger plug-in electric car sales exceeded 5.57 million (compared to 3.1 million in the entire 2020), while the market share increased to 8.1%.

It's expected that in 2021, plug-in car sales will exceed 6 million. It might even get close to 6.5 million.

Model rank

In November, the best-selling model happened to be the Tesla Model Y (44,738, best off-peak month), which was followed by the Wuling's Hong Guang MINI EV (40,395) and Tesla Model 3 (38,616).

Then, we can see two plug-in hybrids BYD: BYD Qin Plus PHEV (18,054) and BYD Song Pro/Plus PHEV (15,100), which together with the all-electric version would be way higher (around 30,000 and 20,000 respectively).

Year-to-date, the top plug-ins are Tesla Model 3, Wuling's Hong Guang MINI EV, Tesla Model Y, Volkswagen ID.4 and BYD Qin Plus PHEV.

There are six Chinese plug-in models in the top 10 year-to-date, and 11 in the top 20.

The top-selling models year-to-date:

Tesla Model 3 - 38,616 and 416,460 YTD
Wuling's Hong Guang MINI EV - 40,395 and 368,396 YTD
Tesla Model Y - 44,738 and 326,317 YTD
Volkswagen ID.4 - 14,330 and 102,474 YTD
BYD Qin Plus PHEV - 18,054 and 94,267 YTD
BYD Han EV - 10,026 and 76,594 YTD
Li Xiang One EREV - 13,485 and 76,404 YTD
Volkswagen ID.3 - 7,619 and 67,739 YTD
Changan Benni EV - about 6,500 and 66,050 YTD
GAC Aion S - 7,884 and 64,779 YTD

Top 10 year-to-date:

Brand rank

In November, BYD once again was the top brand with over 90,000 sales. That's a bit more than Tesla's 88,131. It will be interesting to see the result for December.

The third best result was posted by the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture (45,452), but the Volkswagen brand was not far behind with 40,987 units.

Year-to-date, Tesla is far ahead of BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Volkswagen.

The top brands year-to-date:

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Tesla - 88,131 and 764,950 YTD
BYD - 90,691 and 500,585 YTD
SAIC-GM-Wuling - 45,452 and 394,814 YTD
Volkswagen - 40,987 and 319,735 YTD
BMW - 24,696 and 245,299 YTD
SAIC - 23,737 and 207,354 YTD
Mercedes-Benz - 23,556 and 202,630 YTD
Volvo - 20,139 and 170,359 YTD
Audi - 15,219 and 153,219 YTD
Kia - 17,628 and 142,416 YTD

Top 10 year-to-date:

Among the manufacturers, so far this year Tesla is #1 with 13.7% share, followed by Volkswagen Group (11.8%) and SAIC (10.8%). BYD is at 9.0%, while Stellantis is at 5.8%.