Chinese company overtakes Elon Musk’s Tesla to become the leader in the global electric car market
In 2023, Chinese automaker BYD overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla in terms of electric vehicle sales and claims to be the long-term leader.
This was reported by DW.
Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD overtook Tesla in sales in the last three months of 2023, becoming the new global market leader. Despite the fact that Tesla achieved record sales in Q4.
Thus, BYD has every chance to gain a foothold in the top spot in 2024 and become a long-term leader in the electric vehicle market.
Although Tesla is the leader in electric vehicle sales, the Chinese manufacturer BYD (“Build Your Dreams”) has overtaken it in terms of total sales. This is because BYD produces both electric cars and hybrids.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Tesla set a record by selling 48,4507 electric vehicles worldwide. However, the Chinese company BYD sold 526,409 electric vehicles and more than 400,000 plug-in hybrids during the same period, which allowed it to rank first among the largest electric vehicle manufacturers.
At the end of last year, BYD took the top spot among the largest electric vehicle manufacturers and is now likely to keep it. Tesla’s sales growth rate last year was 38%, while BYD’s total sales grew by 62%. And this year, Elon Musk’s company plans to sell 2.2 million electric vehicles, which would mean a slowdown in annual growth to 22%.
Tesla and BYD compete in the Chinese market. In order to maintain its position, Tesla reduced the prices of its electric vehicles in early 2023 due to the high profitability of its business. This reduced Tesla’s profitability, but increased its revenue and caused the stock price to rise. As a result, Tesla made great strides in 2023.
