Top 20 EV brands in Jan 2025 – BYD still leads, Proton close second; Tesla 14th with only 13 units registered

Malaysia’s electric vehicle (EV) sales league has a newcomer in Proton, which started deliveries of its eMas 7 (stylised as e.MAS 7) last month. Launched on December 16, the brand’s first EV started flowing out to early bird customers this year as most would prefer ‘2025’ on their geran.

As such, the eMas 7 topped the EV chart in January 2025 with 421 units registered, well ahead of the BYD Sealion 7 (151 units), M6 (136) and Atto 3 (104). However, that quick start (which is expected for such a high-profile newcomer) isn’t quite enough to push Proton to the top of the EV sales league by brand – it’s second behind BYD’s 505 units, as the Chinese giant has five EVs (the above-mentioned three plus Seal and Dolphin) in its local range.

It’ll be interesting to see the sales battle between one-model-brand Proton and BYD’s range this year. As of late last month, order books for the eMas 7 had close to 4,000 units. “Our target is to deliver 1,000 units by the end of February, with a further ramp-up in March to meet the strong demand,” Pro-Net chief branding officer Salawati Mohd Yusoff told us, adding that the 1k-unit mark is usually when a new car starts to be ‘seen on the road’.

Third is BMW with 230 units, which is very impressive when you see that chief German rival Mercedes-Benz only sold 35 units last month. That’s what BMW-owned MINI is doing (34). Elswhere, fourth placed Zeekr (101) is another brand with a ‘new model bounce’ – the Geely-owned brand’s 009 luxury MPV and X crossover were launched in December.

Bermaz’s Xpeng started the year strong with 81 units registered in January. So far, the distinctive G6 SUV is the brand’s sole model, but we might see the X9 luxury MPV in showrooms soon.

The rest of the top 10 has MG in sixth (53), GWM in seventh (43), Porsche in eighth (38) and Mercedes-Benz in tenth. Tesla is all the way down in 14th with 13 units registered. We’re pretty sure this isn’t due to the Elon Musk negative effect seen in Europe and Australia (the Tesla boss is US president Donald Trump’s right-hand man of sorts), and some might be waiting for the Model Y Juniper that will be here in April.

Still early days, 11 games to go. Jan 2025 EV sales by model here.

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