BYD, which is less than 3,000 vehicles away from overtaking Tesla as the largest EV automaker in the world, is targeting the American automaker’s EV crown in the wake of a disappointing third quarter for Tesla.
When Bloomberg analysed the figures, they discovered that the difference in sales between the two manufacturers was only 3,456 despite an increase in exports and a decrease in production from Tesla:
After a plant outage caused the US automaker to experience its first delivery decline in more than a year, China’s top-selling automaker just missed unseating Tesla last quarter.
In the three months that concluded on September 30, BYD sold 431,603 fully electric vehicles, an increase of 23% from the prior quarter. With a 3,456-car disparity between the two, Tesla shipped 435,059 cars globally in the third quarter.
Taylor Ogan, CEO of Shenzhen-based hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, which holds shares in both automakers and predicts that BYD will sell more completely electric passenger vehicles than Tesla in the fourth quarter.
With 822,094 sales this quarter, BYD is already without a doubt the most popular automaker in China, according to Bloomberg. Additionally, exports for BYD increased from five percent of revenues to nine percent in just one quarter.
This is only one illustration of BYD’s desire to sample some of Tesla’s lunch. BYD really manufactures and markets affordable EVs using its own semiconductors and batteries, as opposed to just making empty promises about them. In addition, the company unveiled an SUV that is so impermeable that can actually be used as a boat, as opposed to Musk’s long-promised temporarily buoyant Cybertruck, which has yet again been delayed from delivery.
