9:23 am, January 3, 2024
Chinese EV maker BYD sold more cars than Tesla did during the last quarter of 2023, it has been revealed.
It said it shifted 526,000 battery-only vehicles versus Tesla’s record figure of 484,500 to make it the world’s biggest seller of electric cars.
The last three months of the year were the first quarter in which BYD has outpaced Elon Musk’s car company.
However, Tesla still churned out more battery-only cars throughout the year than did its Asian rival – 1.84m versus BYD’s 1.6m.
In December, BYD – which stands for Build Your Dreams and is backed by US businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett – announced that it’ll be building a manufacturing and production centre in Hungary.
The plant in Szeged will be the first of its kind built in Europe by a Chinese automotive company, said BYD, and will be constructed in phases.
It’s expected to create thousands of local jobs as well as boost the local economy and support local supply chains.
BYD now has 230 retailer stores across 19 countries after one year of operating in Europe.
It said last year that it had ruled out building a factory in the UK because of the impact of Brexit – in fact, the UK didn’t even make its top 10 of potential sites in Europe.
The Chinese carmaker currently sells five models in Europe with plans for another three this year.
It wants to sell some 800,000 cars a year in Europe by 2030 but its ambition could be thwarted by an anti-subsidy investigation launched last September by the European Commission, which said BYD’s prices were being kept ‘artificially low’.
Pictured at top is a BYD factory
