BYD is competing with Tesla and could become the world's best-selling electric vehicle (EV) maker of 2024 if Tesla’s quarterly sales figures are weaker than expected.
Last year BYD sold 1.76 million EVs and while Tesla has maintained a slim lead in EV sales over BYD the Shenzhen-based firm has been narrowing the gap.
BYD's total vehicle sales jumped over 41% in 2024, year-on-year, and has benefited from a rise in car sales in its home market. The Chinese market has seen intense competition and as a result falling prices and government subsidies have encouraged consumers to replace their old cars with EVs or other more fuel-efficient options.
BYD sells 90% of its cars in China, where it’s been extending its lead over foreign brands like Volkswagen and Toyota.
The strength of BYD and other Chinese EV makers is in stark contrast to contrast to many other manufacturers.
Honda and Nissan are holding merger talks, as they look to fight back against competition from the Chinese car industry while Volkswagen, which has gone back on plans for plant closures and thousands of redundancies, having recently struck a deal with the unions is still struggling to cut costs while the likes of Stellantis issued a profit warning at the end of 2024 and saw its boss, Carlos Tavares, quit with immediate effect following a boardroom clash.
By contrast BYD has seen its revenues soar, beating Tesla's for the first time. Between July and September last year it saw profits jump 24 per cent to hit $28.2bn – Tesla reported quarterly earnings of $25.2bn.
As a result of this performance, however, many markets are pushing back against BYD with the EU imposing tariffs of up to 45.3% on imports of Chinese-made EVs while the US announced a 100% duty on EVs from China.
But while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to impose further tariffs on imports, BYD is likely to see further robust growth over the coming year as Western competitors continue to struggle in developing cost-effective alternatives.
