BYD Surpasses Tesla in Q4, 2023, Emerges as the Global Leader in Electric Car Sales

 

In 2023, BYD, a company supported by Warren Buffett, sold a lot of electric cars—1.57 million, which is 73% more than the year before. In the last part of the year, they did really well, selling 525,409 battery-electric vehicles (BEVs).

Even though Tesla sold the most electric cars overall in 2023 (1.8 million units), BYD's quick growth shows that China is becoming a big player in the global electric car industry.

China is doing well in electric cars because the government strongly supports them. They wanted at least 20% of all new cars sold in China to be electric by 2025, and they achieved this goal in 2022, three years early.

China's success in electric cars is because of its big domestic market, cheap labor, and control over the supply chain. Chinese carmakers, like BYD, are doing well in other countries, making traditional competitors like Volkswagen and Renault worried. The European Union is even looking into Chinese state subsidies.

China aims for electric cars to make up the majority of new car sales by 2035, including battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Recent data shows that in the first 11 months of 2023, more than 30% of all cars sold in China were electric, totaling 8.3 million units.

Miao Wei, the former minister of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes China might reach its goal of 50% electric cars by 2035 as early as 2025 or 2026.

This positive outlook shows China's important role in the global electric car industry, using its size and early advantage to lead in both making and improving electric cars. Analysts from Natixis Asia, a French investment bank, say, “China is now leading in production and increasing its comparative edges.”