Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD zooms past Tesla’s sales

Recently, BYD announced it was rolling out a superfast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the pumps

BANGKOK: Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD logged a record 777.1 billion yuan ($107 billion) in revenue last year as its sales of battery electric and hybrid vehicles jumped 40%.

The report late Monday coincided with BYD’s launch earlier this week of its Qin L EV sedan, a mid-sized model similar to Tesla’s Model 3 but at just over half the price.

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Tesla’s 2024 revenue was nearly $97.7 billion. BYD’s net profit last year was about 40 billion yuan ($5.6 billion), up 34% from the year before.

Last week, the company announced it was rolling out a super fast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the pumps.

BYD’s Hong Kong-traded shares fell 3.2% on Tuesday, despite its upbeat earnings report. The lion’s share, nearly 80%, of BYD’s sales last year were related to its automotive businesses.

BYD reported it sold about 4.3 million pure electric and hybrid vehicles last year. Nearly 29% of the company’s sales were in markets outside Greater China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, last year, up slightly from 27% the year before.

The automaker has rapidly expanded its exports, though it has yet to try to sell in the US, where US President Donald Trump has pledged to raise tariffs on car imports. BYD faces a 17% tariff on exports of EVs to the European Union.