“BYD’s sales benefited from a rising demand for EVs in China and the discounts it offered to domestic car buyers,” said Gao Shen, an independent analyst in Shanghai. “The new title as the world’s largest pure-electric car builder will hone its image as a global leading player in transforming the automotive industry.”
BYD, known for cars that are priced around 100,000 yuan (US$14,013), dethroned Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker in 2022. The company, controlled by billionaire Wang Chuanfu, delivered a total 1.86 million EVs that year, most of them in mainland China, beating Tesla’s 1.31 million units. But Tesla makes only pure electric cars, so it shipped 43 per cent more of those than BYD’s 917,118.
Tesla’s four models fall into the category of premium EVs, which start at 259,900 yuan in the mainland market.
At present, two out of every five vehicles sold on the mainland are EVs, and EV sales in China – the world’s largest market for such cars – account for about 60 per cent of the global total.
In Europe, the Seal has a sustainable 25 per cent cost advantage over rivals, even with growing trade barriers such as tariffs factored in, the report added.
The Swiss bank forecast that Chinese-made cars, benefiting from a faster pace of electrification in the world’s largest automotive and EV market, will control 33 per cent of the global market by 2030, up from 17 per cent in 2022.
In the fourth quarter, BYD also delivered 416,242 plug-in hybrid cars, up 6.6 per cent from the previous quarter.
