Chinese media on Sunday reported that the famous Chinese electric carmaker BYD wants to expand operations overseas, setting a unit sales target for 2023 to overtake Tesla. BYD plans to start operations in more than 40 countries and intends to sell approximately 2 million electric vehicles in 2023, including in Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia, as per Nikkei Asia reporters.
Founder and chairman of BYD, Wang Chanfu said that “Our dream will come true as a result of research and development efforts past 20 years, We will modify the global industrial structure for luxury cars”. Also, the report said that BYD is set to announce the Yangeang U8 off-road electric SUV and U9 supercar this year, with costs ranging between 8,00,000 (($1,16,878) and 1.5 million yuan.
Because of its precarious position in China, BYD will enter the luxury EV sector. The BYD’s growth has been fuelled by strong sales of low as well as medium-priced models ranging between 1,00,000 ($14,561) to 3,00,000 yuan ($43,683), such as the BYD Song, BYD Qin and BYD Han, according to the report.
After all, the competition in the price range is increasing. Tesla resorted to steep price cuts in January, lowering the base model 3 to 229,000 yuan from 265,900 yuan. It now competes head-on with BYD in the medium-priced market, according to the report.
In December 2022, BYD Auto reminded the global market leader, shipping more than 5,37,000 electric vehicle units which is an increase of 197% in the 3rd quarter of this year, leaving Elon Musk-run Tesla far behind globally.
China BYD company’s top 3 models namely BYD Song, BYD Qin and BYD Han contributed to over 56% of the company’s sales during the quarter. On the other hand, Tesla’s global sales increase only 43% YoY in the third quarter of 2022 to over 343,000 units, as per Counterpoint Research.