Li Auto Deliveries : 2026 (H1)

After January and February experienced subdued deliveries, March sprung into life with over 41,000 units sold. Li Auto said they had now resolved a production bottleneck, which may explain what happened. 

Monthly deliveries have levelled off in the 30-35,000 area. For Q2, that caused a 11% drop. Q3 has a lower figure to compete with,  so another drop is unlikely in that quarter. 

Q4 will decide if an increase will be achieved in 2026. At least it won't be the 19% reduction 2025 endured. The i6 model cumulative production passed 150,000 in June. Total Li historical deliveries exceeded 1.7 million in late May. 

Li Auto is officially entering markets in the Middle East and Central Asia while exploring opportunities elsewhere, possibly Europe. 

Data & photo source: Li Auto (Li6 & Li9).

BYD Passenger Car Deliveries : 2026 (H1)

BYD has recently been flying high. Massive increases in deliveries have been so large that it was hard to comprehend the scale of it all. It always had to hit a ceiling sometime, but when?

Q4 2025 gave a hint of what might have been coming, but sometimes quarterly figures can be aberrations rather than solid trends. A slow down of car sales and aggressive competition in China suggested the latter. Q1 2026 seemed to confirm that Q4 '25 wasn't going to be an exception. 

Q2 has made a comeback, but were still below the lofty achievements of 2025. Electric cars were down 8% and adding hybrids to EVs produced a marginally better 4% drop. 

Adding EV and Hybrid deliveries, BYD forecasts domestic sales at around 3.5 to 4 million vehicles. Exports are estimated to be around 1.5 million. That puts the total in the 5 to 5.5 million area. That is quite a reversal from Q1 2026. My initial reaction says the target is too high, but they must know what they are talking about.  

Data source: BYD. Picture source: BYD (BYD Dolphin & Denza B8).

Rivian Deliveries & Production : 2026 (H1)

Rivian produced and delivered just over 12,000 vehicles in Q2 2026, which was higher than the estimated 9,000 to 11,000 estimated by the company. The full year estimate figure moves up 3,000 units to the 65,000 to 70,000 region.  The introduction of the R2 model will increase the chance of the target being met. Rivian estimates it will deliver around 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles by the end of the year. 

Looking at the data below shows that H1 deliveries and production are just ahead of the corresponding period in 2025. The R2 will presumably ramp up the volume sufficiently to achieve those target numbers. 

So the current line up is the R1S large SUV, R1T pick up and now the R2 medium sized SUV is coming soon this year. In 2027, when the small R3 SUV arrives, the range will be filling out nicely. 

Data & photo source : Rivian (R2 & R1T)

Tesla Delivery & Production Figures : 2026 (H1)

Tesla deliveries were up 6% Q1 and 25% Q2, reaching 838,000 YTD. Production increased 13% and 10% respectively, reaching 860,000 YTD. The gap between the two per quarter is fluctuating quite dramatic. So the inventory build up in Q1 has been dealt with in Q2 quite decisively.  

Both deliveries and production are just above half of last year's total. Considering that the last two quarters are consistently higher than the first two would indicate 2026 unit volume will be ahead of last year and possibly by a reasonable margin.

Data & photo source: Tesla.