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One of our readers, “Mateo from Chile,” wrote in with the following note the other day: “I saw Zach’s good article on Tesla’s Superchargers in Chile earlier this week. I live in Chile, and noticed that the latest Chilean EV sales report was published yesterday (for the Jan–Sep 2024 period). I thought a little article on the Chilean EV market, on the back of the Chilean Supercharger article earlier this week, could make sense. Below are some raw materials that could be used for such an article — hope you find them helpful.”
What Mateo sent in is basically an article itself, so I’m going to publish it in full on its own below. But, first, Mateo also sent in a couple of other notes about the Superchargers. “1) Chile Superchargers will be free for Tesla customers for an as-yet undetermined amount of time, and 2) the Superchargers are very well located: one of the Supercharger locations is near the highway from Santiago to the Viña del Mar/Valparaiso area, right before the highway forks north (Viña) and south (Valpo). It is one of the highest-traffic roads in Chile. The other is on the northern outskirts of Santiago, just off the very busy Panamerican Highway. Great positions, both for practical customer purposes but more importantly for advertising purposes.” Useful notes. In general, though, on the second point, I think one thing many of us have learned is that Tesla is quite adept at placing Superchargers in ideal locations. So, it is no surprise the company has done so in Chile. The first part is something I certainly was not aware of. Interesting news.
Now, on to “some takeaways” from the new Chilean EV sales report for January–September 2024 (link in sources¹).
By “Mateo from Chile”
1) EV growth in Chile has exploded in 2024. Pure EV sales in Chile have grown by nearly 200% so far this year, in a market that has declined by nearly 7% excluding EVs. As a result, EV market share in Chile, while still small, has tripled vis a vis last year (from 0.4% to 1.2%), with the market share for the month of September growing to 1.6%. Slowly but surely, Chile is getting there, despite relatively few subsidies.
2) The Tesla Effect: This growth has coincided with the arrival of Tesla to Chile. Tesla has 25% market share of EVs sold in Chile this year, despite only launching in late January and making its first deliveries in April (and despite having only 2 models for sale). BYD, which arrived in Chile last year, is #2 at 19%, and Volvo is #3 with 12%. However, if you remove Tesla from the equation, total EV sales in Chile have still grown 120%. One explanation for the growth would be that there are finally good, decently priced options available, which weren’t available before (see next point).
3) The top selling EV in Chile is the Model 3 (15%), followed by the Model Y (10%), Volvo EX30 (8%), and BYD “Mini Dolphin” (aka Seagull) (7%). All of these models were introduced to the market in 2024. Nothing else changed — no new subsidies, nothing. The market finally has decent EV options, and look at what happened — EV sales have tripled!
4) BYD’s 19% market share comes primarily from their downmarket offerings (85% of their EV sales this year are from the Dolphin Mini (aka Seagull, #4 EV by sales in Chile), Yuan Plus (aka Atto 3, #5 EV position), and Dolphin (#8 position)). Their much-hyped “Tesla killers” like the Seal have not had success, potentially a result of the Seal’s high price (the Seal costs nearly $16,000 more than the entry level Model 3 RWD and over $2,000 more than the most expensive Tesla sold in Chile, the Model Y Performance AWD) as well as the Seal’s low ground clearance (only 4.7 inches).
A note here: BYD beat Tesla to the Chilean market by about 8 months and had a golden opportunity to capture potential Tesla customers who had given up hope that Tesla would ever enter Chile. But BYD’s upmarket Han, Seal, and Tang (SUV) models, which theoretically should cater to a Tesla customer base, are horrendously overpriced. Hard to justify shelling out $70,000 for a BYD Han when you know that they sell the same model in China for $30,000.…
Sources:
¹ https://www.anac.cl/category/estudio-de-mercado/ link “Informe de ventas vehículos Cero y Bajas emisiones Septiembre 2024” for EV info, link “Informe del Mercado Automotor Septiembre 2024” for the overall car market data
² https://www.anac.cl/category/estudio-de-mercado/ link “Informe de ventas vehículos Cero y Bajas emisiones Septiembre 2024” for EV info
³ IDEM
4 IDEM, plus www.tesla.com/es_cl for pricing of Model 3 and Model Y in Chile, and https://guillermomorales.cl/autos-nuevos/byd/seal for BYD Seal pricing in Chile and ground clearance
BYD note: Personal experience, BYD websites. By the way, the Han is a really cool car. I took it for a test drive and loved it. It is just horribly overpriced (and its ground clearance is too low for a country with so many speed bumps and over-the-curb sidewalk parking).
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