BEIJING, October 4 (TMTPost)— Tesla, Inc is on the brink of losing the global electric vehicle (EV) champion as its arch rival BYD Co. Ltd kept setting sales record.

Credit：Visual China

BYD sold 287,454 new energy vehicles (NEVs) including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in September, refreshing its sales record for the fifth straight month and first topping 280,000 units of sales in a month. Recent sales represent a 42.8% year-over-year (YoY) increase and around 4.8% more than the previous record BYD made in August.

The latest monthly record brought BYD’s total sales from January to September to 2,079,638 NEVs, surging 76.23% from a year earlier. The EV maker shattered another quarterly record as it sold 824,001 NEVs in the quarter ended September. In terms of full electric vehicle, or BEV, BYD record sales of 431,603 units in the third quarter of the year, rising 23% from the previous quarter, while Tesla that quarter delivered 435,059 vehicles, missing the Wall Street estimated 456,722. The quarterly gap between Tesla and BYD reached 3,456 vehicles, the narrowest ever on the record.

Tesla blames the lower-than-expected delivery for factory downtimes. “A sequential decline in volumes was caused by planned downtimes for factory upgrades, as discussed on the most recent earnings call. Our 2023 volume target of around 1.8 million vehicles remains unchanged,” Tesla said.

BYD’s record-making sales were driven by its robust growth overseas. The Shenzhen-based company exported 28,039 NEVs in September, with a 262.4% YoY growth and a 12% month-over-month (MoM) growth. Its monthly export has maintained more than 10,000 units since last November, and the past month set another record after its sales overseas just hit 25,000 vehicles in August. The sales beyond China stood at 73,400 units in the first half of the year, more than doubling last year that had 55,900 units of annual overseas sales. 

The export volume highlighted BYD’s accelerating overseas expansion. BYD has so far launched passenger vehicles in 54 countries and regions such as Japan, Germany, Australia and Brazil. The automaker unveiled in July its first manufacturing expansion in Latin America in about eight years. It signed an agreement to start operations in three factories simultaneously in the Camaçari complex, 50km from Salvador, the capital of Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia. Calling the new move “a historic landmark in the Brazilian automotive industry”, BYD said it will invest in more than 3 billion Brazilian reals (US$620 million).

With obvious advantages of products, BYD is stepping up development in overseas market, and is expected to deliver rapid growth in Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Huaxi Securities Co., Ltd. said. The Chinese brokerage firm forecasted BYD’s exports will exceed 300,000 vehicles this year. 

The overseas market plays its role in cementing BYD’s leadership in global NEV sector. From January to July, 2023, BYD sold 1.441 million NEVs globally, increasing 80% YoY, according to CleanTechnica, a news website on clean technology. BYD maintains the top with a market share of 20.8%, up from last year’s share of 18.4%, and widened the gap between Tesla, which had a share of 14.6% in the first seven months of the year.

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