Electric vehicle manufacturer BYD has reported unprecedented annual sales figures, driven by robust Chinese market demand and government incentive programmes.

China’s leading electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD has announced record worldwide sales of both hybrid and electric vehicles for 2024, underpinned by surging domestic demand and the positive impact of government trade-in initiatives. The automaker also benefited from increased consumer interest generated by end-of-year promotional discounts.

This achievement came despite heightened competition within the domestic market, as numerous smaller Chinese electric vehicle producers intensified their efforts to capture greater market share.

The company delivered 4.27 million new energy vehicles (NEVs) throughout 2024, encompassing both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid models. This represented an increase of approximately 41.26% compared with the previous year and exceeded its earlier target of 3.6 million units for the full year 2024.

Passenger NEV sales reached 4.25 million units in 2024, marking a rise of 41.07% from the equivalent period in 2023.

BYD’s battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales also climbed approximately 12.08% last year compared with the full year 2023, totalling 1.76 million vehicles. Likewise, its passenger plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) sales in 2024 surged 72.83% year-on-year to 2.49 million units.

Closing the Gap with Tesla

While US EV manufacturer Tesla remained marginally ahead of BYD in battery electric vehicle sales in 2024, at 1.78 million units, the latter is rapidly closing the gap, particularly given its swift growth in recent years.

Tesla has also encountered various challenges over the past several months, which have contributed to the rise of other competitors. These include declining sales, diminishing investor confidence, and shrinking profit margins. A reduction in subsidies, along with ongoing product issues such as those affecting the Cybertruck, has also affected the company.

In April 2024, the company additionally announced that it would be reducing its global workforce by 10% due to weakening demand, which further dampened consumer and investor sentiment.

Chinese EV Market Maintains Strong Growth Momentum

The Chinese electric vehicle market experienced substantial growth in 2024, propelled not only by established manufacturers such as BYD, SAIC and Geely, but also by a number of relatively new and smaller companies including Leapmotor, Li Auto and Xiaomi.

These smaller companies continued to present significant competition to BYD, which still sells the majority of its products domestically. However, other companies such as Nio and Xpeng felt the pressure of intensifying competition regarding their own sales targets, despite several still achieving respectable growth.

One of the primary factors behind the continued strength of the Chinese EV market is the various subsidies provided by the government to EV manufacturers. The subsidies also enable a number of Chinese EV makers to sell their products at substantially discounted prices in the EU and other regions worldwide.

Other measures such as government trade-in schemes for older diesel and petrol cars have also contributed significantly to boosting EV sales. There has also been growing consumer interest in recent years in adopting greener technologies as the energy transition accelerates.

However, the recent EU tariffs on key Chinese EV makers such as BYD, Geely and SAIC could potentially cause China’s domestic EV market to experience some slowdown in the short term.