Tesla's Chinese, Japanese And South Korean EV Rivals Ended 2023 With Significant Advancements

In the last quarter of 2023, Tesla Inc TSLA lost the EV sales battle to BYD Company Limited BYDDY, which is the first quarter that BYD sold more battery EVs than Tesla. Although Tesla still sold more EVs for the whole 2023 and met its goal of 1.8 million deliveries, its Japanese and South Korean rivals are also advancing on the EV front. 

South Korean Hyundai Motor Group HYMTF surpassed the legacy automakers General Motors GM and Ford Motor F in U.S. EV sales, getting right behind Tesla who still owns the U.S. EV market with 57.4%. share. Hyundai Motor Group owns Hyundai Kia, and the Genesis brands. 

Japan’s Honda Motor Co Ltd   HMC  and Nissan Motor Group Co Ltd NSANY also reported sale increases in 2023.

Hyundai And Kia Are No Longer Viewed As Low-End And Reliable

Hyundai sales increased 11% during 2023 as sales rose 5% during the fourth quarter with total 2023 sales exceeding 801,000 vehicles.

In 2023, Hyundai and Kia took 7.5% of the US EV market, leaving behind the GM-owned Chevrolet brand that held 5.9% and Ford with 5.5%.  Hyundai Motor Group sold 33,918 Ioniq 5 and 12,999 Ionia 6 electric vehicles of its Hyundai brand during 2023. The group also revealed it sold 18,879 Kia EV6 vehicles and 1,118 units of its freshly released EV9 models. Kia reported record U.S. sales in 2023 as it sold 782,451 vehicles in 2023 which marks a 13% YoY rise and 12% increase from its prior record from 2021.

Honda Was Slow To Step Up EV Sales But It’s Accelerating Its Efforts

Japan's second-biggest car maker reported its sales rose 33% as it sold 1.3 million vehicles in 2023, including a 31.5% increase during the last month of the year. On January 7th, Nikkei news group reported that Honda is considering building an EV plant in Canada in a near-2-trillion-yen ($13.83 billion) project that could possibly include in-house production of batteries, but Reuters reported that Honda declined to comment.

With its new Honda e:Architecture, Honda is set to begin production and sales of EVs in North America in 2026.Together with its partner LG Energy Solution, Honda announced in 2022 its plans to build its $4.4 billion joint-venture battery plant in Ohio. In October 2023, Honda and General Motors GM announced they joined efforts to develop affordable EVs, extending the partnership they revealed a year before in which Honda and GM agreed to join forces in a $5 billion effort to try to catch up Tesla in sales.

Nissan Is Going After The Same Markets As BYD

Nissan reported it sold almost 900,000 vehicles in 2023 with sales increasing 23.2%. Also, Nissan ended the year with by revealing in mid-December it will be selling its made-in-China EVs across the globe. Nissan revealed it is establishing a joint research centre with China's leading Tsinghua University next year to focus on EV research and development that covers the charging infrastructure and battery recycling. The research centre is an extension of a story Nissan and Tsinghua University began in 2016 to focus on intelligent mobility and autonomous driving technology.China accounted for only a fifth of Nissan's worldwide sales over the first 10 months of 2023, down from over a third from 2022’s comparable period. Like other Japanese automakers, Nissan faced a a tough sales environment in China last year, with the world's biggest auto market being crowded with domestic brands and heavy price competition with the price war that Tesla initiated. But even Tesla got challenged by BYD that is now a real threat to its EV lead this year.

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