BYD has no intentions of entering the highly-competitive U.S. automotive market, despite being one of the world’s largest producers of electric vehicles and having a significant amount of funds at its disposal. This decision means that the second-largest EV manufacturer on earth will not be challenging Tesla in its home market.
The founder of Chinese automaker BYD, Wang Chuanfu, said that the company is currently in a “full expansion phase” for new energy vehicles, including electric, hydrogen, and plug-in hybrids, as reported by Bloomberg, despite quintupling its net income in 2022.
While BYD was one of many automakers coping with declining interest in electric vehicles, it still managed to sell a record number of EVs and report an 11-fold increase in profit in the last quarter of 2022, even amidst a price war as companies sought to hang on to market share in China.
Read: BYD Sold 911,410 BEVs In 2022 And Is Closing In On Tesla
BYD is among the few to have succeeded, and now controls 41 percent of new energy vehicle sales in the market, reports Reuters. In comparison, Tesla, which only sells EVs and not plug-in hybrids, controls only 8% of the market.
Overall, BYD’s vehicle sales expanded by more than 200 percent in 2022, but it doesn’t expect to be able to continue at that pace. As China ends its EV subsidy program, the automaker is reducing shifts at two of its major factories. Still, in the first quarter of 2023, it expects sales to increase by 80 percent.
Wang’s lack of interest in challenging the American market does not mean BYD is solely focused on its domestic market. The automaker has begun expanding into Europe, targeting countries such as the U.K., Denmark, and EV-centric Norway. Wang anticipates that the growing prominence of electric vehicles will cause a reshuffling of the global automotive industry.
