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China’s BYD is overtaking Tesla as the carmaker extraordinaire
- ripper1138 4y agoI see tons of them on the streets here in China. Lots of taxis are BYD as well.
- smackeyacky 4y agoThe difference in taxis in shenzhen a few years ago astonished me. Either filthy, ragged, diesel VW passats, or incredibly high tech BYD electric SUVs. They were impressive back then, will be interesting to see what BYD can do with an affordable EV.
- anaganisk 4y agoIt would be interesting to see a Chinese manufacturer taking the lead in the automobile segment. Wonder how it will affect politically. It was all Korean or Japanese dominance till now with KIAs/Hyudai and Toyotas. American cars brands mostly fail outside the US.
- Dalewyn 4y agoThere's no "would" about it, it is happening if the 2030 all-EV timetable is kept to. Other than Tesla, western (that includes Japan and South Korea) car makers stand to lose everything vice versa China who stand to gain everything with the current politics.
- jacquesm 4y agoIndeed, companies like VW, BMW, Mercedes, Ford, GM, Hyundai/KIA, Nissan, Honda etc are going to lose everything compared to a new entrant which doesn't have a single vehicle on sale in the markets where those brands have long been established players. They must be quaking in their boots. /s The 2030 timetable is not going to be met by any single manufacturer, if it is going to be met to begin with. I suspect that it is going to be pushed backwards bit by bit as reality sets in: that it always was too ambitious a target to realistically achieve. And if they stick to it, which I would find very brave it will simply mean that the price of personal transportation will skyrocket and that older non BEVs will have to hang around a little longer. There is so much that has to work for an all electric transition for every new vehicle sold in the next 7 years to be successful that I wouldn't bet on it. I think of it more as a goal to strive for than something that is realistically achievable, but of course I hope that I'll be wrong on this. Time will tell.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoChina added production capacity for almost 4million EV's last year. (from 16% to 30% of 26 million). Given that Europe buys 12 million cars per year, hitting that goal would be straightforward for China.
- jacquesm 4y agoYou need to look at the size of the internal market first. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that I think that it is very unlikely that we'll see any of those here in numbers that would significantly impact the current division between US/Europe/Japan/Korea. Also keep in mind that whatever goals have been set that Europe at a minimum (but probably also other territories) are going to want to have a very large slice of the labor/manufacturing pie. If that isn't on offer then the tariffs will likely kill the market to protect local competitors, of which there are plenty.
- thworp 4y agoI don't think production capacity is one of the main reasons for not reaching the goal, rather it will be Lithium availability and charging infrastructure.
- lazylizard 4y agore: nokia vs apple
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, that happened. But in a way it proves my point: if a local manufacturer competes on quality, branding and user experience they can wipe out an outsider in a very short time. The perception of Chinese brands; Polestar excepted for the moment; is not such that people are going to pick those over the brands that have been active here for longer than people have been alive. Apple was a well known brand name before Nokia was, and that is in part why it succeeded.
- Dalewyn 4y ago>The 2030 timetable is not going to be met by any single manufacturer, if it is going to be met to begin with. I suspect that it is going to be pushed backwards bit by bit as reality sets in: that it always was too ambitious a target to realistically achieve. The car industry, specifically the American market, already went through the "nobody can do tha-- wait what" phase once upon a time: California was poised to enact then-considered-ridiculous emissions regulations, American car makers all complained it was impossible to satisfy and California was on the verge of shelving them when Japanese car makers (read: Honda) came in to show it can be done. The rest is history: Japan proceeded to murder and dominate the American car market, and soon the world. The moral to take away from that is that so long as even one manufacturer can demonstrate the feasibility of the timetable, they can and will become the new king and kingmaker of the car industry. I'm in fact in complete agreement with you that the 2030 timetable is ridiculous and it'll probably be pushed back and back with excuses, but history has proven itself to be amusing at times.
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- elzbardico 4y agoIt won't happen, ideologically, globalization is over, and the west have no more qualms about using protectionist measures. Chinese cars will be severely tariffed in countries under west influence or subject to other trade controls.
- jacquesm 4y ago> American cars brands mostly fail outside the US Ford & Tesla customers the world over beg to differ, and GM is sold in many countries under different brands as well. The top 20 has a number of Chinese players and they are definitely moving up year-by-year but the top 5 has been unchanged for years: VW; Toyota; Stellantis; MB; Ford. Tesla is a bit player and BYD isn't on the market so it is impossible to rate them other than as a successful domestic player. If a Chinese manufacturer would succeed in the West my money would be on a JV between VW and FAW, BYD vehicles under the Toyota brand is another option. A Chinese manufacturer going it alone is likely not going to succeed due to the way previous Chinese brands have been received by these markets. Geely played it smart, they have acquired Volvo and with their Polestar brand they are now moderately successful in the EV only market, with 80,000 vehicles scheduled for delivery this year.
- rhaway84773 4y agoFord’s market share continues to decline outside the U.S., dropping to below 6% in Europe and 2% in China. It’s reached a point where afore no longer provides quarterly market share numbers in Europe. https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/ford-global-vehicle-sales-and-market-share/#2 https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/ford-gl... Tesla is doing “well” but it’s starting from a very small base and its absolute numbers are still very low. It still hasn’t faced real competition which is only now ramping up. Let’s see how it responds.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoBYD is starting to sell in Europe right now and reviews are actually quite good so we need to wait and see a bit. I see no reason for a decent quality and affordable EV not to achieve at least relative success. But we've seen before that any successful Chinese company is liable to be hit by Western governments' campaigns against it. So if we start to see article linking BYD to whatever awful deed you can think of towards the end of the year or next year I guess it'll mean there are doing well in the West.
- jacquesm 4y ago> But we've seen before that any successful Chinese company is liable to be hit by Western governments' campaigns against it. So if we start to see article linking BYD to whatever awful deed you can think of towards the end of the year or next year I guess it'll mean there are doing well in the West. That's a bit of a weird turn in your comment.
- jacquesm 4y agoWhat a weird article. Tesla rates 9 mentions, Toyota rates 17 against 20 for BYD, the subject of the article. It's laced with references to Toyota but doesn't really say much about the BYD vehicles themselves besides that they are not yet sold in the United States. I haven't seen a single one of these and with the Chinese market as large as it is I'm sure that they could stay away from other markets for a long time without exporting their BEVs to countries where they will have to face competition from established Western brands. Toyota itself is way behind the curve on BEVs, their JV with BYD is mostly Toyota hedging their bets that their Hydrogen path ends up being a dead end. If you want to know more about BYD the wikipedia page is a lot more informative than this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Auto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Auto
- killerpopiller 4y agonot only competition but compliance. The legal obligations a car manufacturer has to satisfy in the EU nowadays is wild, IUPR, OBFCM, WLTP are just the programs regarding emission checks. There are many many more.
- jacquesm 4y agoGood point. This may in fact be the thing that BYD expects to get out of the Toyota relationship.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoFrom what I understand many BYD vehicles already have Euro safety specs. Including, incredibly, the $9,000 Seagull.
- jacquesm 4y agoApparently they'll start selling here in NL in Q4/23, I will definitely go and have a look at them to see what they've made.
- jensgk 4y ago
- cosgrove 4y agoNo doubt, they are growing fast! And naturally they would make more than Tesla, since BYD makes more than just BEVs. BYD's numbers often contain plugin hybrids (PHEV). So if you're trying to compare apples/apples, be sure to look at pure-battery EVs between the two. Note 'electrified' from a different article from Barrons: "BYD delivered 206,089 electrified passenger vehicles in March [2023], up about 98% from the 104,338 delivered in March 2022. The March 2023 figures include 102,670 all battery electric vehicles and 103,419 plug-in hybrid models."
- rhaway84773 4y agoThe article makes clear that BYD will surpass Tesla in BEV sales this year, not including hybrids.
- Kalanos 4y ago"Yet it ignores a Chinese newcomer" yup, i'm sure tesla execs are ignoring top competitors. 4th grade writing
- dgacmu 4y agoThat sentence is referring to the media commentary ignoring BYD: > Much of the media commentary surrounding Mr Toyoda’s move casts it as a response to Tesla. That is too Western-centric. Tesla may be the world’s biggest ev producer and, according to Elon Musk, its boss, so far ahead of the competition that he cannot see the number two with a telescope. Yet it ignores a Chinese newcomer that,
- mcphage 4y ago> yup, i'm sure tesla execs are ignoring top competitors I mean, the CEO spends his time getting into spats on the social network he bought, so I don't think he's paying very close attention to the EV space.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoGiven the quality of his posts, it's fairly clear he spends approximately 0 seconds thinking about or researching them before posting them.
- mcphage 4y agoInteresting...
- bryanlarsen 4y agoI'm convinced that the spate of Tesla price cuts this year are mostly to get ahead of BYD and Chinese competition as much as any other reason. 1/3rd of the world's cars are sold in China, and the EV market share went from 16% in 2021 to 30% to in 2022. IOW, production capacity increased by 4 million cars. Now China is slumping. Last year it was easy to sell an EV in China, now it's hard. So millions of Chinese EV's are going to start flooding Europe soon. Chinese already makes over half of Australia's EV's.
- endisneigh 4y agoOnce China introduces the EV equivalent of the Chevy Spark (which was one of the cheapest ICE cars ever, with an MSRP of $13K just last year) in the USA, that has a range of around 100 to 150 miles it's game over for many of these American manufacturers on the econobox type vehicles. American and European price gouging will come to an end soon enough. Assuming that range is cut in half during the winter in the coldest scenarios and the average American commute, one way is 25 miles, 150 miles will be more than enough to replace most ICE cars. That being said, destination on a car from China probably costs $2K alone, so reaching a 13K price point anytime soon will be very, very difficult. Supposedly the BYD Seagull can go 200KM and costs $9K in China, so we'll see. Exciting times ahead. (For reference Jiangnan used to sell ICE cars in China several years ago for less than $2K, so even though EV is cheap absolutely compared to USA, it's still much more expensive than what China could make if they continued to make ICE cars. That being said 2030 will result in banning of ICE in many regions)
- bryanlarsen 4y agoBYD Seagull. $9,000. 74hp engine. 30kWh battery, which is good for 300km using WLTP, so probably 150 miles using EPA methods. Euro safety spec.
- belltaco 4y ago> Once China introduces the EV equivalent of the Chevy Spark (which was one of the cheapest ICE cars ever, with an MSRP of $13K just last year), that has a range of around 100 to 150 miles it's game over for many of these American manufacturers. > American and European price gouging will come to an end soon enough. Just like how cheap Android phones in Asia resulted game over for Apple, Samsung etc. in the past 12 years?
- endisneigh 4y agoIn the low end market, that has been the case.
- dazilcher 4y ago> Once China introduces the EV equivalent of the Chevy Spark [...] it's game over for many of these American manufacturers. Then why aren't the streets full of Chevy Sparks?
- sen 4y agoSuch an odd article. PR piece? We have them in Australia and they’re utter junk. I read all the hype and was interested in an affordable electric runaround car for school/shopping runs etc.. but a 15 minute test drive is enough to tell you that Toyota/Tesla/any-major-manufacturer isn’t worried about BYD as a serious competitor. Of course they sell well in China. It’s a Chinese brand. American cars sell well in America. More news at 7.
- Incipient 4y agoPretty much every market so far as well proven that cheap wins. The number of Chinese cars on Australian roads has absolutely exploded over the last few years.
- bioemerl 4y agoIt sounds like China is subsidizing a new state champion and it's time to treat them to the same treatment we gave their former state champion. Sanction it.
- jemmyw 4y agoYou can buy them in New Zealand. I've seen quite a few BYD Atto around. Considering their price they're pretty attractive feature wise.
- sdfghswe 4y agoYou talk to Charlie Munger and his beloved BYD is all he talks about. How come these guys always get it right? In China the story is never as single "buy good businesses cheap", as we know that in China if you don't play politics you'll get kneecapped.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoI believe that BYD also actually supplies batteries to Tesla for their Berlin's gigafactory.
- syntaxing 4y agoLet’s be real, you think China allowed Tesla to be the first private owned company for shit and giggles? It’s always been the strategy. Let Tesla hire a bunch of local people and work for a year or two. “Entice” them to leave and work for companies like BYD. It’s a win win strategy for China, you get foreign investment and they fund your local expertise to replace the same product. Especially now that Tesla uses mainly Chinese batteries, it’s pretty trivial to roll the same technology into Chinese product with a bit of political and economical incentives.
- SongofEarth 4y agoFor the government, direct technology transfer is much less of an incentive than building a domestic supply chain, which helps every other player in the industry, plus Tesla and other automakers are big taxpayers.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoJust because a brand sells well in China doesn’t mean it will in US/Europe. BYD had been around for a long time, and I’ve been hearing stuff like this for a decade now. But so far no major consumer Chinese brand has been able to make a serious impact abroad because the quality just isn’t there. And if you’ve lived (not visited, lived) in China and seen their processes you understand why. Yes, Geely bought Volvo, but Volvo is still a Swedish company run from Sweden. China is very good a manufacturing products for other companies at their specs (ie Foxconn for Apple). It performs poorly when it comes to their own brands.
- jacquesm 4y agoGeely also has Polestar which is doing ok.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoPolestar is a Swedish brand, like Volvo (it's a Volvo spin-off, not a Chinese company)
- HDThoreaun 4y agoVolvo is owned by Geely
- insane_dreamer 4y agoand it was owned by Ford before that; but it's no more a Chinese brand now than it was an American brand then
- dagw 4y agoYes and no. There was a Swedish, Volvo backed, racing team called Polestar Racing that had a company called Polestar Performance that made custom tuned Volvos and worked closely with Volvo on some concept and special edition cars that Volvo sold as "Polestar Engineered". They were however never owned by Volvo, pre Geely, never a car company, and had nothing to do with electric vehicles before Geely/Volvo bought them. Several years after Geely bought Volvo, Geely/Volvo bought Polestar Performance and the Polestar brand and decided to make them an EV brand for cars built on the new Geely platform and spun them off as a separate company. So yes, they're technically a Swedish brand originally and technically they're spun off from Volvo. And, yes the Polestar company headquarters is in Sweden. But the Swedish Polestar company never actually made cars, they only became part of Volvo long after Volvo was part of Geely, and was almost certainly Geely's decision to spin them off as a separate EV company. The original, 'real', Polestar still exists as Cyan Racing.