BYD is an interesting company. It’s like a very distant, very neglected cousin of Tesla. Tesla and BYD have grown their plugin vehicle production and sales almost in tandem for the past decade. Currently, they are neck and neck in global plugin sales in 2022 — Tesla in the winning position one month, then BYD taking #1 the next. (At the moment, BYD is leading in cumulative 2022 sales. That could shift again in June, which is one of Tesla’s big delivery months, but we’ll see.)
Of course, many Tesla fans will point out that BYD is a bit “dirtier,” selling plugin hybrids as well as full electrics. Nonetheless, as far as selling cars that can run on electricity as much as you plug them in and charge them, BYD is second to only Tesla (and first in 2022). Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that larger batteries do require more battery minerals, minerals that can’t then go into another plugin vehicle’s battery. I prefer pure battery electrics and think everyone now sees them as the future, but I also think criticism of plugin hybrids goes overboard and ignores their big benefits (can drive on electricity almost all the time and use much smaller batteries).
🔋 27 years of battery development
🏆 First OEM to discontinue full ICE cars & focus on EV & PHEV
🌎 BYD's Footprint: 70+ Countries, 400+ Cities, 1.9 million+ NEVs
🌬BYD Prevented 11M Tons of C02 Emissions
🌲Equals to Planting 896,000,000🌲
Learn More—https://t.co/jRwhKPjMxD pic.twitter.com/ftVVdsSL9C
— BYD (@BYDCompany) June 2, 2022
The big news this month is that BYD has passed 2 million cumulative sales of plugin vehicles. That’s a huge milestone that is hard to comprehend. Two million vehicles is a lot of vehicles. XPeng and NIO just celebrated reaching 200,000 cumulative EV sales!
Importantly, BYD’s plugin vehicle sales keep growing and growing. Unlike Tesla, which sells vehicles around the world, BYD is basically getting all of its coin from China. In its home country, Build Your Dreams (BYD) now has 4 of the auto industry’s 10 top selling vehicle models! That’s not 4 out of the top 10 plugin vehicle models, but 4 out of the overall auto market’s top 10 best selling models — across all powertrains. In April, within the plugin vehicle market alone, BYD had 7 out of the top 10 best sellers!
In May, BYD sold 114,183 plugin vehicles. Extrapolating out 12 months, that would be 1.37 million electric or plugin hybrid vehicles a year. So, BYD should reach 3 million cumulative plugin vehicle sales before the end of 2022.
BYD sold 114,183 #electricvehicles & #phev in May.
Achieving the milestone of 2 million total #EV & #PHEV sales! pic.twitter.com/9Ps5TINfKc
— BYD (@BYDCompany) June 2, 2022
#BYD has saved 25,932,574,004 lbs of carbon ♻ emissions.
Doing our part towards protecting our beautiful planet!#ClimateAction #climatechange #electricvehicles #ClimateActionNow pic.twitter.com/9ZPelrAy1w
— BYD (@BYDCompany) June 11, 2022
Stay tuned. One thing is for sure: BYD will hit 4 million plugin vehicles sales much quicker than it took the company to get to 2 million sales.
Note that the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y together passed 2 million cumulative sales in the 1st quarter of 2022. The company as a whole passed 2 million cumulative sales across all models in the 4th quarter of 2022. It should also reach 3 million vehicle sales (100% electric in this case) before the end of 2022. Who will get to 3 million or 4 million cumulative plugin vehicle sales first, BYD or Tesla?
Additionally, and perhaps much more interesting for those of us following the whole EV transition, how long will it take for NIO and XPeng (or other companies) to reach 2 million EV sales?
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