8:08 am, August 18, 2026
BYD only started selling passenger cars in Britain in March 2023 – just three short years later it has now hit 100,000 registrations.
Its growth has been nothing short of astonishing, helped in no small part by partnering with Car Dealer Top 100 dealer groups who have helped open 143 sites for the brand across the UK.
Its sales have rocketed from just under 9,000 cars in 2024 to nearly 38,000 in the first six months of 2026 alone.
Dealers have told this magazine that the manufacturer is aiming for 100,000 sales in 2026 and has ambitions to be the biggest selling car firm here within three years.
That would mean overtaking Volkswagen at the top of the sales charts – a feat that would cement a whole new world order for the car industry.
‘Believe the hype,’ one dealer told me.
‘I’ve been in meetings where they have told the network they want to be number one. We’ve had to chant it back to the management. They are very serious about it indeed.’
So how has a brand that most British car buyers had barely heard of a few years ago managed to establish itself so quickly?
Well, in our latest Car Dealer video, which you can watch above, we look inside the BYD operation to find out. And the answer starts a long way from the showroom.
BYD was founded in China in 1995 as a rechargeable battery business and only moved into cars in 2003, but it was the battery knowledge that has helped it hugely as the market moves towards EVs.
The firm has also built its business around controlling an unusually large amount of the technology and components that go into its cars.
Back in 2009, Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger famously said BYD made pretty much everything in its cars apart from the ‘glass and the rubber’. While that might not be completely true, a recent probe of one model found some 70% of the parts were produced in-house.
Batteries, motors, power electronics and semiconductors are among the technologies BYD can produce internally rather than relying entirely on outside suppliers. And it’s this control that means it can bring cars to market at ‘China speed’, a phrase coined for the Far Eastern manufacturers because of how quickly they do things.
Traditional car manufacturers mostly depend on vast networks of outside suppliers, each with their own costs, capacity and production schedules. By bringing as much of it can within its control, BYD has greater control over costs, supply and how quickly new tech reaches its cars.
All this helps BYD develop a new car in as little as 18 months – a feat that takes some legacy manufacturers five years or more.
And it also helps BYD make rapid changes too. The first Atto 3s sold here famously had ‘BUILD YOUR DREAMS’ written in large letters across the boot. Dealers and journalists hated it – it did sound like a poster you’d see on a bedroom wall – so BYD listened.
Within months, the lettering had gone and the BYD badge took its place. Most established car manufacturers are simply too arrogant to listen to feedback like this and would have carried on regardless.
There is also a human force behind much of BYD’s international expansion. Boss Stella Li joined BYD in 1996 when it was still a tiny battery business and has spent almost three decades turning it into a global giant.
She has pushed its overseas growth hard and it has rapidly caught up China’s once largest car exporter, Chery.
The firm sold more than one million vehicles outside China in 2025, with overseas expansion now a major part of its ambitions.
That global push can also be seen in an extraordinary investment that few car manufacturers can match: BYD even has its own ships.
Eight huge car carriers were in operation by late 2025, with combined annual capacity to move more than one million vehicles around the world. BYD is a company that takes vertical integration very seriously indeed.
Battleground Britain
When BYD entered the UK, it decided to partner with established car dealers. There was no talk of agency sales, but instead a traditional set-up with top operators including Pendragon, Arnold Clark, Lookers and LSH Auto.
The network has expanded at remarkable speed with 52 sites in place by the end of 2024, 125 by the end of 2025 and now there are 143.
One dealer told us: ‘BYD has realised that a good dealer partner gives customers somewhere to see and test drive the car, arrange finance, trade in their old vehicle and return for servicing. And importantly, they trade on our relationships with past customers.
‘It was refreshing not to hear any agency nonsense and just have a chat about traditional franchise sales when we took them on.’
It helps that Britain itself has also provided BYD with favourable conditions. There are no tariffs to bring in Chinese cars to the UK, unlike 17% duties in the EU and 100% tariffs in the US.
At the same time, the UK has been pushing rapidly towards electrification with the 2030 ZEV Mandate and fleets have been snapping up their cars too.
Customers have taken to the brand rapidly thanks to dirt cheap finance deals, cars packed with lots of tech and premium feeling cars.
James Batchelor, associate editor at Car Dealer, said he was ‘surprised’ how quickly BYD gained a foothold.
‘It helped their cars were desirable from the off and the cheap finance deals meant they were easy choices for many new car buyers,’ he said.
Ballooning range
BYD started with just EVs, but has rapidly switched to plug-in hybrids too – and the brand seems to be constantly increasing its range.
Its UK line-up already includes models such as the Sealion 5 DM-i, Seal 6 Touring DM-i and Dolphin Surf, with still more vehicles arriving by the month.
The Dolphin G DM-i takes its plug-in hybrid technology into the supermini market, the Ti 7 expands BYD into large seven-seat SUVs to rival the Defender and the Shark will tackle the pick-up market.
Then there is the Shark, a plug-in hybrid pick-up which BYD plans to introduce in Britain ahead of selected other European markets.
The group is also moving further upmarket.
Denza, which originally began life as a joint venture between BYD and Mercedes-Benz, is being introduced in Britain as BYD Group’s premium technology brand.
Its cars include the Z9GT high-performance shooting brake, the 677bhp Bao 5 plug-in hybrid SUV and the D9 luxury people carrier.
And at the top of the pile sits the Denza Z performance car, with more than 1,500bhp and pricing stretching beyond £170,000.
Whether British customers are prepared to spend that sort of money on a Chinese-owned luxury badge will be fascinating to watch. BYD clearly believes the opportunity is there.
One BYD franchise holder told Car Dealer: ‘We’ve already taken plenty of orders for the Ti 7 – what other car on the market can you get with seven seats for under £50k? It’s a no brainer for buyers.’
The challenge
BYD’s rapid rise in registrations only tells part of the story, though. The next challenge will be building a healthy long-term car business around all those BYDs already on the road.
Used cars will be crucial with residual values having a direct impact on leasing costs, PCP payments and fleet economics.
BYD’s rapid development cycles could create another challenge as well. If a newer, cheaper and more technologically advanced car appears 18 months later, buyers and the used-car industry have to decide where that leaves the pricing for the old model.
There is also intense pressure behind the competitive prices Chinese manufacturers are offering.
China’s domestic car market has been fighting a vicious price war as manufacturers cut list prices and launch increasingly affordable models – and that battle is coming here.
Chery, with its Omoda and Jaecoo brands, plus Chery itself and Lepas, are all fighting for market share in the UK and their cheap deals are enticing buyers.
As growth in China becomes harder, those manufacturers are putting greater emphasis on overseas markets. That means British car buyers and dealers should expect competition to intensify as the Chinese car markers surge towards a 20% market share.
BYD’s remarkable British rise really starts to make sense once you understand how much of the process it controls.
It has deep expertise in batteries and electric vehicle technology, makes a huge amount of the components it puts in cars and has the scale to expand quickly.
That combination has helped BYD go from an unfamiliar Chinese badge to more than 100,000 UK registrations in just over three years.
But the real challenge starts now. With more choice for buyers in the market when many of BYD owners come to renew their cars, will they stick with BYD or ditch it as quickly as they ditched their legacy manufacturer-made cars for one of the many other Chinese brands now in the market?
The next three years could tell us far more about how permanently the UK car market has changed, than the last three.