BYD passed Ford as the world’s fourth best-selling auto brand in August, Ford’s sales dropped in Europe and the US, market research firm TrendForce said in a report today.
BYD could reach 8-9 million China sales in about 4 years (2027). BYD is dominant with plug in hybrid but as China electrifies the plug in hybrids will also get replaced with BEV. If Tesla the Cybertruck and Cybervan, then the replacement of larger SUV and truck plug in hybrids could see more share for Tesla Cybertruck technology. BYD is getting some non-China sales and BYD could have over 10 million sales in 2027-2028. This could make BYD the largest car company in the world by unit sales. This would be with 80-90% sales from China.
I predict BYD would then lose its top global car sales position to Tesla. BYD would have this position because of the faster NEV adoption in China.
597,000 BEVs and 247,000 PHEVs were sold in China in August. The 597,000 BEVs represent a year-on-year increase of 14.4 per cent and, compared to July (541,000 BEVs), an increase of 10.4 per cent. The 247,000 plug-in hybrids represent a year-on-year growth of 73 per cent and an increase of 4.2 per cent compared to July.
2.58 million new cars of all types (ICE, BEV and PHEV) were sold in China in August (+8.4 per cent on August 2022, +8.2 per cent on July 2023). This means that the NEV share of the total market was 32.8 per cent. That is, one third and thus exactly at the same level as in July.
China will likely reach over 90% BEV and PHEV in about 3-5 years. If the market share for the different carmakers in China stayed about the same then Chinese carmakers like BYD would triple their NEV sales.
BYD sold 287,454 NEVs in September, up 42.83 percent year-on-year and up 4.76 percent from August. BYD has sold over 2 million cars year to date and is on track for 3 million cars sold in 2023. NEV are tracking to about 8.6-9 million in 2023 and overall car sales are tracking to about 28 million.
China NEV YTD (Jan-Sept) sales were about 6.3 million.
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BYD has given up on it’s own autonomy efforts. It might be in the early adopters list to license Tesla FSD tech along with Ford which also dropped it’s own autonomy bets.
BYD probably wins on volume vs Tesla because
1) Tesla only sells 4 models under 1 brand, BYD has several models under multiple brands
2) BYD has high volume low cost offerings with smaller batteries for middle income countries. If the industry battery production is limited, half the kWh per car means twice the potential sales volume