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The functional electric vehicle concept Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX.
David Becker/Getty Images
Mercedes-Benz Group
more than doubled battery electric vehicle sales over the past year. It’s only a beginning. The company and its European peers want to sell a lot more.
You’re here
better be careful.
On Tuesday, Mercedes (ticker: MBG.Germany) announced 2022 sales volumes. The company delivered 2,043,900 vehicles to retail customers, down 1% year-on-year. That’s no surprise, as supply chain issues have constrained global auto production for years.
In particular, Mercedes has seen strong growth in electric vehicles. It sold 117,800 battery electric vehicles in 2022, up about 124% from the 42,400 EV units sold in 2021. Battery electric vehicle sales accounted for nearly 6% of total vehicle sales in retail customers, compared to around 2% in 2021.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mercedes’ most ambitious goal is to sell only electric vehicles by 2030, says Citigroup analyst Martin Wilkie. This implies an average annual growth of around 40% for the eight years.
Other European automakers are also targeting strong growth in electric vehicles.
volkswagen
(VOW3.Germany),
Stellar
(STLA), and
BMW
(BMW.Germany) sold approximately 900,000 battery electric vehicles in 2022. (Final sales data for the full year is not yet available.) Based on each company’s management targets, this number could reach 10 million units in 2030. This implies average annual growth of around 35% for these three countries by the end of the decade.
Tesla (TSLA) is of course the only automaker to have increased its EV sales to a broad sales base. It shipped 1.31 million units in 2022, up about 40% from 2021 shipments of about 936,000 units.
Tesla, and all automakers, will need more models and different price points to achieve ambitious goals. The average electric vehicle in the United States costs around $65,000. Most new cars sold in America cost around $35,000. The average price of all new cars is around $45,000. Electric vehicles still need to be cheaper to achieve greater penetration of new car sales.
Going forward, investors will be watching developments in EV prices and market share closely and to see if traditional automakers and Tesla can sell all the EVs they hope for.
Mercedes stock rose 0.6% in overseas trading on Tuesday, while Tesla stock was down 1.7% in recent trading. The
S&P500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
increased by 0.5% and 0.3% respectively.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
