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Global EV Production: BYD Surpasses Tesla

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Global EV Production by Brand 2022

Global EV Production: BYD Surpasses Tesla

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2022 was another historic year for EVs, with annual production surpassing 10 million cars for the first time ever. This represents a sizeable bump up from 2021’s figure of 6.7 million.

In this infographic, we’ve used data from EV Volumes to visualize the top 15 brands by output. The color of each brand’s bubble represents their growth from 2021, with the darker shades depicting a larger percentage increase.

Data Overview and Key Takeaways

The raw data we used to create this infographic is listed below. Volume figures for 2021 were included for convenience.

RankCompany20222021Growth from 2021
1🇨🇳 BYD1,858,364598,019211%
2🇺🇸 Tesla1,314,319936,24740%
3🇩🇪 VW Group839,207763,85110%
4🇺🇸 GM (incl. Wuling Motors)584,602516,63113%
5🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 Stellantis512,276381,84334%
6🇰🇷 Hyundai Motors (incl. Kia)497,816348,66043%
7🇩🇪 BMW Group433,164329,18232%
8🇨🇳 Geely Auto Group351,35699,980251%
9🇩🇪 Mercedes-Benz Group337,364281,92920%
10🇫🇷 🇯🇵 Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance335,964289,47316%
11🇨🇳 GAC Group287,977125,384130%
12🇨🇳 SAIC Motor Corp.256,341237,0438%
13🇸🇪 Volvo Cars253,266220,57615%
14🇨🇳 Chery Auto Co.253,141107,482136%
15🇨🇳 Changan Auto Co.245,555105,072134%
16🌎 Other (41 companies)1,927,2111,326,26245%

Includes BEVs and PHEVs

BYD Auto

BYD Auto has leaped past Tesla to become the new EV king, boosting its output by a massive 211% in 2022. Given this trajectory, the company will likely become the world’s first automaker to produce over 2 million EVs in a single year.

BYD has a limited presence in non-domestic markets, but this could change rather quickly. The company is planning a major push into Europe, where it expects to build factories in order to avoid EU tariffs on Chinese car imports.

The company is also building a factory in Thailand, to produce right-hand drive models for markets like Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Tesla

Tesla increased its output by a respectable 40% in 2022, staying ahead of Western brands like Volkswagen (+10%) and GM (+13%), but falling behind its Chinese rivals such as Geely (+251%).

Whether these Chinese brands can maintain their triple digit growth figures is uncertain, but one thing is clear: Tesla is facing more competition than ever before.

The company is targeting annual production of 20 million cars by 2030, meaning it will need to keep yearly growth rates in the high double digits for the rest of the decade. To support this initiative, Tesla is planning a multi-billion dollar factory in Mexico capable of producing 1 million cars a year.

Hyundai

Hyundai Motor Company, which also owns Kia, posted a similar growth rate to Tesla. The South Korean automaker was a relatively early player in the EV space, revealing the first Hyundai Ioniq in 2016.

In late 2022, several countries including South Korea expressed their disapproval of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which withdrew tax credits on EVs not produced within the United States.

Hyundai is currently building a $5.5 billion EV factory in the state of Georgia, but this facility will not become operational until 2025. In the meantime, South Korea has revised its own EV subsidy program to favor domestic brands.

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Energy

Visualized: Inside a Lithium-Ion Battery

Lithium-ion batteries are critical for many modern technologies, from smartphones to smart cities. Here’s how this critical technology works.

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shareable for the lithium-ion battery cross-section

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The following content is sponsored by EnergyX

What’s Inside a Lithium-Ion Battery?

Winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2019, the lithium-ion battery has become ubiquitous and today powers nearly everything, from smartphones to electric vehicles. 

In this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to find out how these important pieces of technology work. 

Looking Inside

Lithium-ion batteries have different standards in various regions, namely NMC/NMCA in Europe and North America and LFP in China. The former has a higher energy density, while the latter has a lower cost. 

Here is the average mineral composition of a lithium-ion battery, after taking account those two main cathode types:

Material% of Construction
Nickel (Ni)4%
Manganese (Mn)5%
Lithium (Li)7%
Cobalt (Co)7%
Copper (Cu)10%
Aluminum (Al)15%
Graphite (C)16%
Other Materials36%

The percentage of lithium found in a battery is expressed as the percentage of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) the battery contains. On average, that is equal to 1g of lithium metal for every 5.17g of LCE.

How Do They Work?

Lithium-ion batteries work by collecting current and feeding it into the battery during charging. Normally, a graphite anode attracts lithium ions and holds them as a charge. But interestingly, recent research shows that battery energy density can nearly double when replacing graphite with a thin layer of pure lithium.

When discharging, the cathode attracts the stored lithium ions and funnels them to another current collector. The circuit can react as both the anode and cathode are prevented from touching and are suspended in a medium that allows the ions to flow easily. 

Powering Tomorrow

Despite making up only 7% of a battery’s weight on average, lithium is so critical for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries that the U.S. Geological Survey has classified it as one of 35 minerals vital to the U.S. economy.

This means refining lithium more effectively is critical to meeting the demand for next-generation lithium-ion batteries. 

EnergyX is powering the clean energy transition with the next generation of lithium metal batteries with longer cycle life, greater energy density, and faster charging times.

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