Turning Over A New Leaf

Electric car sales are not booming globally despite many governments offering incentives to buy. The Leaf has spearheaded Nissan's BEV efforts and it has been well received. The model has been manufactured at three sites as seen below. 

The data is not provided by Nissan so accuracy is reliant on other parties. A few may have been produced in 2010. Sources mention over 650,000 having been produced and these figures indicated the 700k mark may have been reached. 

Two series have been produced so far as the change in colour in the Year column indicates. 300,000 for Series 1 and 400,000 for Series 2.

Series three is coming after a slight break and it appears to be well executed. It majors on a nice interior and has a good mileage range per charge. It certainly would be on my shopping list if I was looking for an electric car. 

BYD's Miracle

BYD has been around for a while with reasonable success but its sales have recently surged. Most of its deliveries are in China but is aiming for half its sales to come from outside of China by 2030. Considering it sold 4 million cars in China in 2024 and may increase this figure by 2030, that is a challenging target. It's in a hurry.

I wrote about recent sales for 2023-24 and Q1 2025 which can be seen by clicking on the dates. I was impressed about the progress BYD was making. 

A leaked e-mail in late 2024 showed BYD asked suppliers for a 10% reduction in prices which sounded arbitrary to say the least. Once prices are negotiated, they should be honoured until the next round of negotiations. BYD responded at the time by saying the price cut wasn't mandatory. Still, it set off an alarm bell for me.

Now comes confirmation of something far darker. BYD decided to build its first plant outside of China in Brazil. However, work was stopped there late last year. Now The Public Labour Prosecutor's Office in the state of Bahia says 220 Chinese workers were rescued and is suing BYD and two of its contractors. Why? They said the standard of accommodation, work hours and some issues around workers rights were unacceptable. 

One would like to think this was an exception but we don't know. I mentioned earlier that the company seems in a hurry. That always concerns me as a hasty desire for success should never be at the expense of human rights. I know that sounds idealistic in this world where abuses in this regard are not uncommon. But having a major work construction closed down is serious and hopefully lessons are being learned. 

Whoever is responsible for this situation will be held accountable and I don't know who knew what. But either way BYD is ultimately responsible as they must make sure nothing like this happens in any of their operations. Would I buy a BYD? Not for now at least. They need to make sure they are building dreams responsibly.

Photo source: BYD NZ.

Buick China Sales : 2010-2024

Buick has a long history in China and has been a popular brand. When GM entered bankruptcy protection in 2009, decisions had to be made regarding restructuring. Buick was saved due to its strong position in China. We will see how that decision was vindicated by considering sales of the marque in China from 2010 to 2024. 

The figures include only cars made in China but I assume that is the vast majority if not all anyway. Import duty makes that a necessity. Sources can vary as to the numbers involved but in larger volumes of data it's not much of an issue. The chart figures need three zeros added so for example 900 equals 900,000.

2010-14: The chart to the right shows Buick sales went up from just over 500,000 to over 900,000. That was an increase from about 4% market share to just over 4.5%. 

In comparison, for the USA Buick increased from 155,000 to 225,000 with around 1.4% share. That's quite a difference with China well ahead. 

2015-19: Sales went from just over a million to above 1.3 million and then under 900,000. That had Buick reaching 5% market penetration, then falling to around 4.1%. In the US, sales were just over 200,000 per annum and 1.2% share. So the brand was still far more popular in China but the gap was closing. 

2020-24: From just over 900,000 units it plunged to barely over 300,000 by 2024. Its slice of the pie went from about 4.5% to 1.2%. Back home sales were about 170,000 and 1.1% market share. China was still the more important numerically but its share was now similar to the US. I wonder which was now the more profitable.

So what happened? Part of the reason was the Excelle model (photo at top). In 2014 it contributed over 500,000 units to the total (or 60%). By 2020, it was 300,000 (33%) but then the model was phased out and nothing fully took its place, the Envision and GL8 doing their best. 

In 2024 all models fell, some substantially. I assume that was due to giving up on chasing market share at the expense of profit. The issue was also that the market was changing and Buick wasn't keeping up. Electric cars are growing strongly in China and local brands are doing a good job of catering to that shift. 

Buick has introduced an electric brand (Electra, photo below) to cater to the swing toward new energy vehicles as they are referred to in China. How the Buick brand will go in future I'm unsure but then Electra may be the future for Buick in China.