Electric cars, the Chinese BYD overtakes Tesla on sales
China's BYD (funded by Warren Buffett) outperformed Tesla in the number of electric cars sold and LG in terms of batteries produced. Here are numbers, details and analyst comments
In the first six months of 2022, Chinese carmaker BYD sold more electric vehicles than Tesla, the American company led by Elon Musk and commonly associated with this type of car.
BYD SALES
BYD is headquartered in Shenzhen and has Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company of multibillion-dollar entrepreneur Warren Buffett, among its main financiers and shareholders. In the first half of 2022 BYD sold more electric vehicles than any other automaker: 641,000 units, an increase of more than 300 percent year-on-year. In the same period of time, Tesla sold 564,000; However, the company said it had experienced a particularly difficult second quarter due to the impact of Chinese policies to contain infections on procurement and sales.
CHINA AND CLEAN ENERGIES
The Financial Times writes that in the background of BYD's rise is China's good positioning in the renewable energy sector, which also provides cost and scale benefits to battery and electric vehicle chain operators. Jeff Chung, an automotive analyst at Citi, called BYD's sales performance “impressive”.
BYD AND THE BATTERIES
In addition to surpassing Tesla in electric car sales, BYD has also become the world's second largest manufacturer of vehicle batteries, taking over from South Korea's LG Energy and positioning itself behind only Chinese CATL .
According to South Korean consultancy SNE Research, BYD's overtaking of LG Energy in terms of monthly market share since last April was also possible due to the disruption at the Tesla factory in Shanghai, the most populous city in China which was subjected to a strict lockdown for two months.
The coronavirus case containment policy pursued by the Chinese authorities has affected Tesla (and other Chinese carmakers such as Li Auto, Xpeng and NIO) far more than BYD, whose manufacturing plants are not located in the areas of China affected by the most restrictions. severe.
CHINA AND THE EXPORT OF ELECTRIC CARS
According to some analysts, the good results reported by the Chinese auto industry could have profound repercussions on the entire sector as companies like BYD or Li Auto begin to focus more on exports.
In 2021, China – the world's largest market for cars – exported more than half a million electric vehicles, more than double the year before. However, around a third of China's exports to Europe consisted of Chinese-owned European brands such as Volvo; Chinese brands (BYD, for example), on the other hand, accounted for just 2 per cent. Furthermore, almost half of the exports concerned Tesla models produced in China; finally, the remaining 14 per cent consisted of joint ventures between European and Chinese companies.
Tu Le, an analyst at Sino Auto Insights, however, thinks BYD is soon starting to compete with foreign auto makers in their home markets, particularly the United States.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/byd-tesla-auto-elettriche/ on Tue, 05 Jul 2022 13:12:07 +0000.