China’s BYD to overtake Tesla as world’s top EV seller for first time
Imported BYD vehicles are parked at a port in Yokohama, Japan, on March 27, 2025.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Chinese auto giant BYD is expected to dethrone its US rival Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle seller by calendar year, on Friday.
The milestone would cap a meteoric rise for BYD, a company whose products Tesla’s Elon Musk laughingly dismissed during a 2011 Bloomberg interview.
The two automakers are preparing to release their final annual sales figures for 2025, but based on current sales data, it seems almost certain that BYD will officially surpass Tesla.
In a statement released Thursday, BYD said sales of battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units. Tesla has not yet announced its 2025 sales figures, but is expected to do so later in the day.
On Monday, Tesla compiled a median forecast for 1.6 million vehicle deliveries in 2025; That puts the company on track for its second consecutive annual decline, down nearly 8% from 2024.
Deliveries are the closest approximation to sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.
Tesla has had a bumpy ride this year. The company saw its shares collapse in the first quarter of 2025, particularly due to stiff competition from Chinese EV manufacturers and the reputational damage created by Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric.
But stock prices have rebounded in recent weeks after Musk said the company was testing self-driving vehicles in Austin, Texas, without passengers on board, almost six months after launching a pilot program with safety drivers.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
