BYD Maintains Higher Sales Than Tesla

In the world of electric vehicles, there's a Chinese company outdoing Elon Musk's Tesla. And it's just getting started.

BYD, the Shenzhen-based Chinese EV champion, eclipsed Tesla in annual sales last year. Last week, it unveiled a revolutionary battery charging technology that it says adds 250 miles of range in five minutes, outpacing Tesla's Superchargers, which take 15 minutes to add 200 miles. And last month, BYD launched "God's Eye," an advanced driver-assistance system rivaling Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature, at no extra cost for most of its cars.

They're just three examples of how BYD has been pulling ahead of Tesla. The company once laughed off by Musk is now effectively outperforming Tesla in sales, innovation, and price competitiveness.

Having dominated its home market of China, the world's largest auto market, BYD is starting to expand globally, with notable exceptions like the United States, a country it is effectively barred from due to 100% tariffs on its passenger cars.

In China, BYD accounted for 32% of last year's total sales of new energy vehicles, which include hybrids, far outpacing Tesla's 6.1% market share, according to the China Passenger Car Association. (BYD makes both battery-powered cars as well as hybrids, while Tesla makes only fully electric vehicles powered by batteries.)

BYD and Tesla are locked in a fierce competition as the world's number one seller of battery electric cars. BYD surpassed the American giant for the first time in the last quarter of 2023. After falling behind for part of 2024, the Chinese company ended the year selling almost 100,000 more cars than Tesla in the last quarter.

Though BYD's passenger cars have yet to enter the US market due to high tariffs, its electric buses are already in service in California.