Two Records, Three Declines: China's July EV Deliveries, Company by Company

July's delivery reports from China's electric vehicle makers sort into two stacks: records and declines. The records wrote the headlines. The declines hold the momentum question. Each company's number below carries its own attribution, because three of the five rest on an industry tracker rather than the maker's own release.

BYD delivered 419,211 new energy vehicles in July, up 21.76 percent from a year earlier and 3.90 percent from June, its highest monthly total of 2026 so far, per CnEVPost's monthly roundup [1].

Zeekr reported 35,837 vehicles, up 111.09 percent year over year and 1.90 percent from June, a fourth consecutive monthly record, though CnEVPost notes the month-over-month growth rate narrowed [1].

Nio's own delivery release puts July at 35,934 vehicles: 20,008 under the NIO brand, 10,155 from ONVO and 5,771 from FIREFLY, a breakdown that sums exactly. The company reports the total up 71.0 percent year over year, with 227,057 deliveries year to date, up 68.0 percent, and 1,224,649 vehicles all time through July 31 [2]. The sequential framing comes from CnEVPost, not from Nio: June's total was 40,597, so July is down 4,663 vehicles, an 11.49 percent drop and the first sequential decline in three months [1]. Nio's release does not mention the decline.

XPeng's own announcement reports 38,027 deliveries, up 4 percent year over year, with cumulative deliveries past 1.2 million [3]. Against June's 40,126 that is 2,099 fewer vehicles, a 5.23 percent sequential dip that CnEVPost attributes to constrained supply of the Mona L03 [1]. XPeng's release, like Nio's, is silent on the month-over-month change.

Li Auto delivered 30,468 vehicles, down 0.86 percent from a year earlier, a narrower year-over-year decline than June's, and down 1.38 percent from June's 30,895, per CnEVPost [1].

Together the five companies delivered 559,477 vehicles in July, and BYD alone accounts for 74.9 percent of that total. Three of the five delivered fewer vehicles than in June. Nearly every year-over-year comparison is strongly positive, which is how a flattening month still reads as a boom: measured against last July, Nio is up 71.0 percent and Zeekr more than doubled. Measured against June, the two record-setters gained 3.90 and 1.90 percent while the other three went backward. Record and slowdown are both true; they answer different questions.

On sourcing: Nio's and XPeng's figures are cross-checked against the companies' own releases, which match CnEVPost's roundup exactly [1][2][3]. BYD's, Li Auto's and Zeekr's figures rest on CnEVPost's aggregation alone this run. It is the standard tracker for these monthly prints, and it remains a secondary source.

August's prints will answer the live questions: whether Nio's dip was a scheduling artifact or a turn, whether XPeng's supply constraint clears, and whether BYD can hold a 400,000-vehicle pace. The headline records are real. The sequential column is the one to watch.