What is the reason for the rapid progress of the Chinese company 'BYD', which has surpassed Tesla and jumped to the number 1 spot in EV sales?

BYD, an electric car manufacturer based in China, sells electric cars all over the world, including Japan, and will surpass Tesla in the fourth quarter of 2023 (October to December) to sell the most electric cars in the world. Became the manufacturer that sold the. The New York Times summarizes the reasons for BYD's rise.

How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/business/byd-china-electric-vehicle.html

BYD was founded in 1995, and initially focused on the battery business. BYD released the gasoline car `` BYD F3 '' in 2005, and began selling the plug-in hybrid car `` BYD F3DM '' in 2008. However, according to the New York Times, when BYD first started selling cars, they had problems with workmanship, such as ``uneven paintwork'' and ``bad door placement,'' and were not seen as a threat by the auto industry. It wasn't.

Still, BYD continued to increase car sales, and in the fourth quarter of 2023, it overtook Tesla to become the manufacturer that sold the most electric cars in the world.

Tesla finally cedes top spot in EV sales to China's BYD - GIGAZINE

Below is a graph showing the trends in electric vehicle sales of BYD (black) and Tesla (blue). BYD has continued to rapidly increase its sales volume since the first quarter of 2021, and will reach the same sales volume as Tesla in the third quarter of 2023.

BYD is also expanding its influence in Japan, opening “ BYD AUTO Takamatsu ” in Kagawa Prefecture on February 10, 2024, and “ BYD AUTO Gifu ” in Gifu Prefecture on February 22, 2024. I am. The link below has a list of BYD's dealers in Japan, and you can see that they have dealers all over Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

BYD official dealer | BYD Auto Japan Co., Ltd.
https://byd.co.jp/e-life/dealer/

BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu declared in 2008 that they would ``start exporting electric vehicles to the United States within two years,'' but problems such as the high manufacturing costs and short cruising range of electric vehicles had an impact. gave up on entering the American market. Furthermore, in 2011, Chairman Wang said , ``The automobile industry should concentrate on gasoline vehicles and hybrid vehicles,'' and there remained a reluctance to export electric vehicles outside of China.

Meanwhile, BYD continues to focus on popularizing electric cars in the Chinese market, hiring Wolfgang Egger, a famous designer who has worked on designs for Audi and Lamborghini, in 2016, and developing new batteries that improve the range of electric cars. We have been working on strengthening the lineup by working on the development of.

As a result of years of research and development, BYD is now able to produce electric vehicles at a lower cost compared to other manufacturers. For example, a major Swiss bank, UBS, announced an analysis showing that the production costs of BYD's electric cars are 35% lower than Volkswagen's models in the same price range. The New York Times points out that BYD's low manufacturing costs give it an advantage in price competition, leading to increased unit sales.

The New York Times also noted BYD's extremely fast hiring pace. According to engineer Chanchan Liu, who joined BYD from General Motors, the number of people on the car development team has tripled in the 15 months since Liu joined the company.

In addition, BYD made headlines in April 2023 by stating that ``autonomous driving technology is impossible to achieve,'' but in January 2024, BYD announced that it would hire 4,000 researchers in autonomous driving technology. We have announced an investment of 14 billion dollars (about 2.1 trillion yen).

BYD, a major Chinese EV manufacturer, believes that ``self-driving technology is basically impossible'' - GIGAZINE

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