(Yicai) Aug. 2 -- Sales at a number of Chinese new energy vehicle makers, including BYD and Li Auto, climbed in July from a year earlier in what is usually a slow month for car sales.

Li Auto led the gains with a more than 49 percent jump in NEV sales to 51,000 last month, setting a new monthly record for the firm. BYD, which surpassed Tesla in global sales last year, sold 342,383 NEVs last month, up 31 percent from a year earlier. Its overseas sales exceeded 30,000.

Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, an automotive alliance started by Huawei Technologies, delivered a total of 44,090 vehicles. Some 41,535 of those were NEVs produced under the Aito brand Huawei developed with Seres Group, after deliveries soared six-fold.

Leapmotor’s deliveries climbed 54 percent to 22,093 vehicles. Leapmotor International, a joint venture of the Chinese auto startup and Stellantis, shipped its first batch of C10 and T03 electric vehicle models from the Shanghai Port to Europe in July.

Nio delivered 20,498 vehicles last month, basically unchanged from a year earlier, while Zeekr, the NEV brand of Geely Automotive Holdings, saw deliveries jump 30 percent to 15,655. Those of Xpeng Motors inched up 1 percent to 11,145. And Hozon Auto, which owns the EV brand Neta, delivered 11,015 vehicles, a 9.7 percent gain.

BAIC BluePark New Energy Technology sold a total of 11,000 cars, with its premium EV brand Arcfox logging a four-fold increase to 8,017.

Xiaomi Auto’s deliveries of the SU7 exceeded 10,000 units last month and are expected to do so this month as well, it said yesterday. The vehicle arm of the Chinese smartphone giant also said it expects to hit its annual target of 100,000 one month early.

IM Motors, the JV between SAIC Motor, Zhejiang Hi-Tech Park, and Alibaba Group Holding, delivered 6,017 vehicles in July, up 249 percent. Dongfeng Motor Group’s high-end EV brand Voyah saw deliveries pop 76 percent to 6,015 units.

China’s overall NEV sales climbed 31 percent between July 1 and 28 from a year earlier, but fell 5 percent on the previous month, according to data released by the China Passenger Car Association at the end of last month. So far this year, retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles has risen 33 percent to nearly 4.84 million from the same period last year.

Some NEV makers did not report sales increases for July. For example, GAC Aion, the NEV brand under traditional carmaker GAC Group, sold 35,238 vehicles, a 22 percent drop from a year ago.

Editor: Futura Costaglione