Top Selling Electric Vehicle Brands Worldwide in April — Hot Geely Beats Tesla

In addition to our monthly report on the top selling plugin vehicles in the world, here’s a report on the auto brands and auto groups or alliances that are selling the most plugin vehicles globally.

Top Selling Brands

Geely continues riding high in its quest to challenge BYD’s domination and surpass Tesla on the way. With a strong portfolio of models in China, and now making its first steps in export markets, Geely has secured another record performance in April, delivering 94,510 units. That allowed it to even surpass Tesla.

BYD remained at the helm, tripling the sales of runner-up Geely. Wuling was 4th, followed by #5 Volkswagen and #6 BMW.

Down below, a mention goes out to #8 Xpeng, jumping 273% YoY, while #10 Toyota is once again the surprise of the table. Yet again, Toyota had a record score, mostly thanks to its Chinese and European operations, which are pulling sales upwards — unlike its domestic market, which represented just 10% of its total plugin sales…. Come on Toyota, you can do better.

At the bottom end of the table, we have two new faces, both with record scores: #19 Denza had 17,822 sales, thanks to the production ramp-up of its new N9 full size SUV (5,000 units). Meanwhile, the D9 MPV continued posting solid results (10,800 units in April), in no small part thanks to exports to Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The Czech Skoda also hit a record score, 17,326 units, thanks to the continued success of the Enyaq and the delivery ramp-up of the new Elroq.

Will Skoda become a familiar face on the table?

Notably, this allowed Volkswagen Group to have three brands in the top 20, beating Geely Group, which this time failed to place Zeekr or Lynk & Co on the table.

In the YTD table, there wasn’t much to report at the top. BYD is well ahead of everyone else, while #2 Tesla lost a bit of ground to #3 Geely. Although, the US brand still has over 60,000 units of advantage over the Chinese make, so it has its silver medal safe.

Below the podium, #5 BMW and #6 Volkswagen are in a close race for the title of best selling legacy brand, with no clear vision of who will win this particular duel.

Considering current trends, #9 Leap Motor could surpass #8 Xpeng and #7 Li Auto in the coming months, while Toyota should steal the 10th spot from Mercedes soon and join the top half of the table. Finally, #19 AITO is likely to surpass tariff-hit Ford in #18.

Top Selling OEMs for EV Sales

Looking at registrations by OEM, #1 BYD gained share, going from 24.2% to its current 24.7%, so it is quite comfortable in the lead. It has an advantage of 13.4% market share over #2 Geely, which itself grew by 0.1%, to 11.3%.

Geely’s progression is nothing short of astounding. Four months ago, the Chinese OEM finished 2024 with 8.3% share, a 3 percentage point progression. That was almost the opposite of Tesla, which lost 2.7 percentage points share in the same period.

Still talking Tesla-land, the US carmaker had its expected beginning-of-the-quarter slow month, losing 0.6% share and dropping to 7.6%, or 3.7% share behind runner-up Geely. AND …

… It has to keep an eye on 4th placed Volkswagen Group. Currently at 7.4% share, a 1.7 percentage point increase over its 2024 result, the German OEM gained significant ground on Tesla. It is now only 10,000 units behind the Texan brand. Sure, June’s peak will allow Tesla to keep Volkswagen at bay, but still … we are witnessing Tesla defending its #3 position from Volkswagen.

Imagine that two years ago!

If Tesla continues to experience sales blues in the coming months, then the German OEM might even have a shot at surpassing Tesla this year!

Outside the top 5, BMW Group (3.6%, down from 3.8% in March) lost ground to the competition — with #7 Changan on its toes (3.6%, up from 3.5% in March) and #8 Hyundai–Kia also not too far off (3.4% in April, up from 3.3% in March).

Looking Just at BEVs …

The big news is that, after losing the #1 spot to BYD (16.7% in April, up from 15.3% in March), Tesla (11.4%, down 1 percentage point compared to March) was surpassed by Geely (11.6%) in April!

Sure, the year hasn’t ended, and Tesla will probably recover the #2 spot in June, but…

The writing is on the wall, folks. Tesla is no longer the leader. And it will start losing positions as the sales inertia effect continues to fade.

And to think that Tesla ended 2024 with 16.5% share.

In 4th, we have Volkswagen Group (8%). Compared to 2024, it has surpassed SAIC (7%) and gained 1.1% market share (6.9% then vs. 8% now).

#6 Hyundai–Kia had another good month, rising from 4% to 4.1% share. It thus kept the #6 position and gained some ground over #7 BMW (3.7%, down from 3.8% in March).