China

Six years after Xpeng launched, the company has announced they’ve produced 100,000 cars.  For comparison, it took Tesla 12 years to produce 100,000 vehicles. Xpeng’s Chinese competitor, Nio, said in April they also reached the 100,000 production milestone after its founding in 2014. Despite it taking 12 years, Tesla has had some tremendous momentum with Tesla hitting its millionth car produced in March 2020 and even more recently with 238,000 vehicles produced just in the 3rd quarter this year.  Chinese electric battery and vehicle maker BYD said in May it produced 1 million passenger cars in the new battery-only and hybrid-powered cars category. Tesla may be out front, but China has several manufacturers working on closing the gap.

Moving South

Electric vehicle and battery makers are planning to spend around $24 billion in new factories in the southern United States.  Some of the factories include (check out the article for the full list):

• Lucid just opened a $300 million plan in Casa Grande, AZ and plans on another $1 billion in expansion.
• Nikola is planning a $600 million facility in Coolidge, AZ
• Tesla is almost finished with its $1.1 billion facility in Austin, TX and is also moving its HQ to TX.
• Canoo has plans to building a $500 million facility in Pryor, OK
• Toyota and Mazda opened a $2.3 billion facility near Huntsville, AL.
• GM and LG are partnering on a $4.3 billion facility in Spring Hill, TN
• Ford recently announced a $5.6 billion complex in Stanton, TN

Norway Goals (Generic EV Pic)

Norway is taking the lead on EV sales with more than 9 in 10 cars sold for the month of September being either electric or hybrid. In all of 2021, less than 5% of all cars sold have been gas-powered. Sales of all-electric cars saw a roughly 46% increase over the previous September, with the Tesla Model Y leading the charge. Norway’s impressive EV sales are guiding the way for the goal of a complete transition to ZEVs by 2025.

August Was Good

Global Plugin vehicle registrations were up 114% in August 2021 compared to August 2020, making up about 7.7% share of the overall auto market and 516,000 vehicles registered. Fully electric vehicles represented 71% of the plugin registrations in August, slightly above the year-to-date tally (67%). In total, there were about 365,000 registrations of fully electric vehicles, or about 5.4% share of the overall auto market. August was the plugin market’s third-best month ever and September is expected to be another great month for registrations. Check out the top 5 Plugin Vehicles sold in August:

1. Wuling HongGuang Mini EV: 41,188
2. Tesla Model Y: 28,144
3. Tesla Model 3: 22,889
4. BYD Qin Plus PHEV: 13,043
5. Volkswagen ID.4: 11,313