Amid the world’s accelerating shift from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric powertrains, top all-electric car OEMs enjoyed significant growth in sales in the second quarter of this year. However, Volkswagen Group continues to lag far behind its competitors in terms of BEV sales.

During the second quarter (Q2) of 2023, American electric car pioneer Tesla Motors, Chinese automaker BYD, and Germany-based Volkswagen Group emerged as the three largest manufacturers (OEMs) of BEVs. All the three OEMs enjoyed an improvement in their respective BEV quarterly sales results year-over-year, but the order didn’t change.

In the April through June quarter of this year, Tesla maintained its dominance in the market, with 466,140 units sold during the three-month period. The figure represents a really strong 83 per cent year-over-year jump in sales.

BYD emerged as the second largest manufacturer in terms of sales as it sold 352,163 units, but the rate of its growth was even faster than that of Tesla. More precisely, BYD enjoyed a growth of 95 per cent year-over-year. The relative distance between the two manufacturers (Tesla and BYD) seems to be decreasing. The Chinese manufacturer achieved roughly 76 per cent of the American EV giant’s volume, up from 71 per cent a year ago.

Volkswagen Group emerged at the distant third position, with 180,239 units sold in the quarter under review. The company’s growth rate was recorded at 53 per cent year-over-year. While the sales results remained positive for the Germany-based automaker, the figures indicate that it could not expand as fast as Tesla and BYD. That resulted in increase of relative distance between the German automaker and its two main rivals.

During the first half (H1) of 2023, Tesla sold almost 900,000 BEVs worldwide, while BYD’s sales exceeded the mark of 600,000 units. On the other hand, Volkswagen Group could sell slightly more than 320,000 units.

To be more specific, Tesla sold 889,015 BEVs during the H1 period of this year (up 57 per cent year-over-year), while BYD sold 616,810 all-electric cars (up 91 per cent year-over-year). When it comes to Volkswagen Group’s H1 results, only 321,091 BEVs were sold (up 48 per cent year-over-year).

For reference, Tesla and BYD delivered more than 1.3 million and 0.9 million electric cars during the twelve months of 2022, while Volkswagen Group sold slightly more than 0.57 million electric cars.