In the 2024 global auto sales ranking, for the first time, two Chinese independent automakers have entered the top ten simultaneously.

In the world's largest automotive market with an annual production and sales volume of 31 million vehicles, just how large can a local automaker grow?

The answer is the fifth place globally.

Today, a "2024 Global Automobile Manufacturers' Sales Ranking" has been circulating in the automotive industry. Besides Toyota, Volkswagen, and the Hyundai-Kia Group firmly holding the top three positions, the more remarkable piece of information is that for the first time, two Chinese domestic automakers have entered the top ten simultaneously.

Among them, BYD, which stirred up the mainstream-priced new energy vehicle market in 2024, successfully ranked fifth globally with sales of 4.27 million vehicles, surpassing the two American giants, General Motors and Ford Motor. However, it is still 1.15 million vehicles short of Stellantis, which ranked fourth.

In addition, the Geely Group has also successfully entered the top ten. After including the sales volumes of mid-to-high-end brands such as Volvo, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Polestar, and Lotus Cars, its sales volume of 3.34 million vehicles is very close to the 3.37 million vehicles sold by the Nissan Group.

From SAIC Motor achieving an annual production and sales volume of over one million vehicles for Chinese automakers in 2010, to Changan Automobile achieving an annual production and sales volume of over one million for its own brand in 2015, Chinese automakers took another big step forward in 2024 and entered the global top five.

Apart from BYD and Geely, Chery, Great Wall Motor, NIO, Xpeng, and others are also important players in the story of Chinese automobiles going global. Internationalization, electrification, and intelligence are the key factors for Chinese automakers to challenge the global rankings.

In 2025, with the increasing penetration rate of new energy vehicles and the continuous intensification of price wars and intelligent competitions, can we expect more Chinese automakers to break into the global top ten? Or even go higher?

Today, let's talk about the issue of automakers climbing up the rankings.

From 1 million to 4 million

On December 15, 2015, Xu Liuping, who was the chairman of Changan Automobile at that time, announced that the annual production and sales of Changan Automobile's Chinese brand passenger cars would both exceed one million units within that year.

In that year, the production and sales volume of China's automotive market both exceeded 24 million vehicles. Even though Changan Automobile's passenger cars achieved production and sales of over one million units, they only accounted for 4% of the market share.

Also in 2015, Volkswagen was hit by the "dieselgate" emissions scandal and lost to Toyota again, failing to become the global number one. However, even so, Volkswagen and Toyota have remained the two benchmarks for global automakers' sales volumes since the 21st century.

At that time, Chinese automakers didn't have the ability to compete on the global stage, but they had the ambition to challenge.

In 2015, SAIC, Changan, Geely, Great Wall, and Dongfeng ranked among the top five in Chinese independent automakers, and they ranked 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th respectively in the global sales rankings. Chinese automakers were already the main force in the second tier at that time.

It was also since 2015 that China's subsidy policy for new energy vehicles was vigorously implemented. Newly established automakers such as NIO, Xpeng, and Li Auto were founded one after another, and Chinese automobiles began to use new strategies to challenge the sales rankings.

Time flew by, and in 2021, Geely for the first time managed to rank its own brand among the top three in annual sales volume in the Chinese market. In 2022, BYD, whose sales volume doubled, became the brand with the highest sales volume in the Chinese market for the first time with its own brand.

Also in 2022, SAIC Group sold a total of 2.81 million vehicles, marking the first time that a Chinese automaker entered the global top ten in terms of sales volume.

Whether it is an automaker focusing solely on its own brand or a state-owned automotive group operating both joint venture brands and independent brands, they have all completed their transformation and are charging from the second tier towards the first tier.

As mentioned at the beginning, it only took Chinese automakers three years to move from the tenth place to the fifth place globally, and it also only took three years to go from having none in the top ten to occupying two positions.

In 2019, former Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said, "China has exceeded all our expectations." This sentence can summarize the path that Chinese automakers have taken since the 21st century, and these newly established automakers have brought the "surpassing expectations" performance of Chinese automobiles to the center of the global stage.

Can they win?

This momentum can give rise to more ambitious ideas - since they have already reached the fifth place, why not aim for the first place?

Toyota has been the automaker that has won the most global sales championships since the 21st century. Moreover, most car buyers around the world still hold the concept of "affordable, practical, and reliable" when purchasing cars. The Model Y, which has won the global single-model sales championship for two consecutive years, is essentially a good, practical, and easy-to-drive family car.

On the other hand, apart from the stable Toyota and Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford Motor, which have been declining, can also serve as references from different perspectives - how can we avoid losing?

Affordability and practicality are not the only reasons for Toyota's success, and General Motors and Ford Motor were not overtaken by Chinese automakers overnight.

By 2025, the reshuffling of the domestic market share among Chinese independent automakers is becoming a reality. However, relying solely on the domestic market, Chinese automobiles cannot reach the global championship position.

According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, the independent brand with the largest export volume in 2024 was Chery, reaching 881,541 vehicles. BYD's export volume was 405,786 vehicles, accounting for 9.4% of BYD's total sales volume in 2024.

In 2024, Toyota sold 8.7175 million vehicles outside of Japan, accounting for 85.8% of its total sales volume.

Remaking the domestic market can cultivate Chinese automakers in the global first tier, but only by going global and selling cars all over the world can they truly win. Toyota's more than 40 factories around the world and its 700,000 employees will be the ultimate goal for Chinese automakers to strive for.

As for General Motors and Ford Motor across the ocean, they reflect the importance of traveling light in the new era of automobile manufacturing.

In 2011, General Motors became the world's top-selling automaker, which may also be the last time General Motors stood at the global peak.

Also in 2011, the Chevrolet Volt was launched. It and the Nissan Leaf were the two pioneers at the beginning of the popularization of pure electric vehicles. The world had high hopes for General Motors at that time, but that might have been General Motors' peak moment.

In the first eight years after the launch of the Volt, the total number of vehicles sold did not exceed 200,000 units. In 2018, the delivery volume of the Tesla Model 3 had already exceeded the total sales volume of all new energy vehicles sold by General Motors in the United States.

After selling Opel/Vauxhall in 2017 and withdrawing from the Australian and New Zealand markets in 2020, General Motors has been trying to shed its burdens and prove itself again with electrification and intelligence. However, for such a huge enterprise, it is not easy to change direction quickly when its development speed slows down.

The same goes for Ford Motor. The replacement of ten CEOs in China within ten years is enough to show the hesitation of this inventor of the assembly line. In 2020, the sales volume of pure electric vehicles accounted for only 0.6% of its total sales volume, which confirms its slow transformation and poor results.

In 2023, the profit margin of General Motors' electric vehicle division was -32%, and Ford Motor's was even -45%.

Our luck lies in riding the wave of technology and successfully "surfing" on it, as well as in the high efficiency and strong supply chain achieved through intense competition.

The electrification, intelligence, connectivity, and sharing of automobiles have been proven to be viable by the market, and intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, and power batteries are becoming key components just like engines and transmissions in the past century.

In 2019, which was the first full year of deliveries for NIO, Xpeng, and Li Auto, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China was only 1.024 million units. Five years later, this number grew to 12.8 million units, an increase of more than 1100% in five years.

Comparing 2019 and 2024, the global sales volume of new energy vehicles increased by 800% in five years. Chinese new energy vehicles sold better than the global average. In 2024, out of every 10 new energy vehicles sold globally, 7 were made in China.

However, "quantity" is only the first round of competition. The "breadth" of market coverage and the "quality" of sustainable profitability are the keys to winning.

After all, Tesla, which did not make it into the rankings and had a decline in sales last year, had a net profit of $2.594 billion (18.9 billion yuan) in the first half of 2024. Toyota's net profit in the first half of the 2024 fiscal year was 1.91 trillion yen (91.3 billion yuan). In the same period of the first half of 2024, BYD's net profit was 13.6 billion yuan.

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