Tesla Rival BYD More Than Doubles Passenger Vehicle Sales In February, Triples Production

Chinese EV giant BYD Co BYDDY sold 318,233 new energy passenger vehicles in February, marking a jump of 161.4% from last year, thanks to a major jump in plug-in hybrid passenger vehicle sales, the company said on Sunday.

What Happened: Pure passenger EV (battery electric vehicle) sales of the Chinese player rose to 124,902 in February, marking a rise of 127.5% from the corresponding month of last year.

Plug-in hybrid passenger vehicle sales in the period rose 189% to 193,331 units.

A whopping majority of these vehicles were sold in China itself as the overseas sales volume of BYD’s new passenger vehicles was only 67,025 units last month.

The company produced 329,211 new energy passenger vehicles in February, nearly triple the number of vehicles made in the corresponding month of last year.

Why It Matters: BYD is the biggest rival to American EV giant Tesla TSLA.

The company first took over Tesla as the world’s largest BEV seller in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, Tesla took back the crown in the first quarter of 2024 and held on to it for three consecutive quarters until the last quarter of 2024.

Tesla reported in January that it delivered 495,570 BEVs in the three months through the end of December, significantly lower than the 595,413 BEVs sold by BYD in the period.

However, for the whole year, Tesla delivered 1,789,226 BEVs, retaining its position as the bestselling pure EV brand for the year, despite a year-over-year drop in deliveries of 1.1%. BYD, meanwhile, managed to deliver only 1,764,992 BEVs in the twelve months, or 24,234 units less than Tesla.

BYD, however, makes plug-in hybrids too, unlike Tesla which makes solely battery electric vehicles.

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