This year, China’s BYD will overtake Tesla to become the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer
Elon Musk once ridiculed the idea that China’s BYD could compete with Tesla. But by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, BYD should be ahead of Tesla in terms of the number of electric vehicles produced and become the world leader in the sale of all-electric cars, writes Bloomberg.
Despite the dominance of Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, and General Motors Co. Chinese manufacturers, including BYD and SAIC Motor Corp. are making serious progress. China has already surpassed the United States, South Korea, and Germany in passenger car exports and is now competing with Japan. About 1.3 million of the 3.6 million cars exported were electric.
As of October 2023, China’s car exports totaled 3.31 million vehicles. Japan is in second place with 3.22 million cars, Germany is third with 2.6 million, and South Korea is fourth with 2.2 million.
Regarding BYD’s competition with Tesla in the third quarter of 2023. Tesla sold only 3,456 more cars than BYD. 435.1 thousand for Tesla, 431.6 for BYD. In the fourth quarter, BYD should overtake Elon Musk’s company.
“The competitive landscape of the auto industry has changed,” said Bridget McCarthy, head of China operations for Shenzhen-based hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, which has invested in both BYD and Tesla. “It’s no longer about the size and legacy of auto companies; it’s about the speed at which they can innovate and iterate. BYD began preparing long ago to be able to do this faster than anyone thought possible, and now the rest of the industry has to race to catch up.”
In 2011, Elon Musk made fun of BYD cars. Now he has changed his mind and considers them “very competitive”. This is not surprising, as BYD now has a much more diverse lineup of cars at a much lower price than Tesla. Over the past two years, BYD has opened representative offices in about 60 countries.
Analysts expect BYD to introduce third-generation electric vehicles next year that will offer more technology, including automated driving capabilities. This is one of the areas where BYD is losing out to more affordable products from Chinese car brands such as Nio Inc. and Xpeng Inc. In fact, the number of automotive competitors in China has dropped from more than 500 to about 100, but new entrants, including well-funded ones, continue to emerge, such as Huawei Technologies, which is planning an aggressive push into the electric vehicle market.