BYD Auto, China’s electric vehicle (EV) king, was the world’s biggest seller of pure electric cars in the fourth quarter of 2024, as Tesla’s sales for the period fell short of expectations.
Shenzhen-based BYD beat Austin, Texas-based Tesla by more than 20 per cent in terms of deliveries. In the fourth quarter, BYD delivered 595,412 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to customers, up 13.1 per cent from a year earlier. The company, which counts Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as a shareholder, also sold 918,556 plug-in hybrid cars (PHEVs) in the fourth quarter, up 120.7 per cent from a year earlier.
Elon Musk’s Tesla delivered 495,570 vehicles globally in the fourth quarter, falling short of a consensus forecast of 512,277 vehicles, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. Tesla’s deliveries were up 2.3 per cent from a year earlier and 7.1 per cent from the third quarter. All Teslas are BEVs.
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“BYD has a strong product line-up whose cheaper BEV models are attractive to more middle- and low-income consumers worldwide,” said Phate Zhang, founder of Shanghai-based electric-car data provider CnEVPost. “It is set to retain the title as the world’s largest BEV maker this year.”
BYD, best known for its cheaper models ranging in price from around 80,000 yuan (US$10,960) to 200,000 yuan, has been a top beneficiary of the breakneck pace of vehicle electrification in China over the past decade. It delivered 4.27 million pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last year, up 41.3 per cent from a year earlier. It was also expected to surpass Volkswagen (VW) to become the country’s largest carmaker – including EVs and petroleum-powered vehicles – in 2024. VW has yet to release its full-year sales figures.
For the first time ever, Tesla, viewed as an assembler of premium electric cars, reported an annual decline in deliveries. They fell 1.1 per cent from a year earlier to 1.79 million units, the company said. Its New York-listed shares slumped 6 per cent to US$379.28 on Thursday after chalking up a gain of 61 per cent in 2024.
A Tesla dealership in Alhambra, California. Photo: Getty Images via AFP alt=A Tesla dealership in Alhambra, California. Photo: Getty Images via AFP>
BYD overtook Tesla in terms of deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2023, but the US carmaker regained its crown as the world’s largest seller of BEVs in the first three quarters of 2024.
China is the world’s largest automotive and EV market. The nation’s top players are at the global vanguard of the supply chain because the high-performance batteries and digital technologies used in their in-car entertainment features make it easier for them to assemble better EVs than their international rivals, according to David Xu Daquan, the China president of Bosch, the world’s largest supplier of car parts.
But BYD and its domestic peers are grappling with higher tariffs from the US and the European Union as they try to expand overseas.
“Chinese carmakers still need to learn from Tesla because it is able to design and make cars to cater to consumers in various markets,” said David Zhang, general secretary of the International Intelligent Vehicle Engineering Association. “It is important for them to internationalise their businesses with their advanced technologies and production advantage.”
In the fourth quarter, BYD’s deliveries outside the mainland accounted for just 7.8 per cent of its total. By contrast, Tesla’s sales in China, its second-largest market, made up about 37 per cent of the global total. The company’s Gigafactory in Shanghai delivered 657,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to local buyers last year, up 8.8 per cent from 2023.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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