BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

Mashimo

> With over 7% market share, BYD is now the top-selling EV brand in the UK so far in 2026 But worldwide it has been for a while, no? I think total EV cars sold in 2025 BYD was top, if I remember correctly.

hdhdhsjsbdh

BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens up national parks for drilling and cancels solar/wind projects. You occasionally see a heartwarming post: “California adds solar panels over a canal” and it just looks cute and kind of sad compared to the massive, ambitious, and technologically superior build out of Chinese renewables. This is to say nothing of the CCP and their record on human rights and free expression. But anyone paying attention can quite clearly see that China is winning and the US is sacrificing their global superiority at the altar of fear, ignorance, and religious nationalism.

Pfhortune

Would be great if we could buy/drive these in the US. Funny how we have a "free market" only when it is convenient for certain interests...

unpopularopp

My SO bought an Ioniq 6 mostly because of the buttons and the seperate control surface for AC and such but they test drived a BYD as well which was the same as a Tesla, just one huge tablet and endless menus

prism56

Ive seen soo many BYD cars in the UK in the last year. I'm not in the market for a new car, but anyone who has looked recently what is the draw to BYD? Is it strictly value/price?

sigmonsays

Where/how can we buy a BYD in the US?

varispeed

It's a shame their cars are being devoid of its own identity. If you squint you might think it's an Audi or Range Rover. A bit like wearing Adiboss or Gacci clothes. Nothing wrong with that. Hopefully BYD will make something original and with style on its own. But counter example is e.g. new Audi look like Kia. Funny.

raverbashing

BYD ships USA boomer car companies run a competition on who can build the biggest crappy SUVs around sold to other boomers who now look aghast at pump prices Europe boomer car companies can't overrun their nit-pickiness and analysis paralysis and wonder why consumers are picking the car with screens that actually work like a modern device and don't have subscription horns or some other BS like that

TitaRusell

Why should Australians or Dutch people have loyalty to foreign car industry? Who killed Holden or DAF? It wasn't BYD lol.

arjie

Traveling in Asia and South America, the primary impression I got was not that this is a war of manufacturing that we're losing but that the game is already up. Chile was full of Chinese makes and they were all surprisingly good. Riding in a Chinese MG in Taiwan or Hong Kong you suddenly realize that this isn't a future competitor. The people talking about the war of car manufacturers here seem like those Japanese holdouts who were still fighting in 1956.

gnfargbl

Is BYD beating Kia here in the UK? It's hard to tell from the SMMT figures [1] but it looks to me as if Kia sold just under twice as many vehicles as BYD. Given that so much of Kia's lineup is now BEV, I'm not sure who is winning. Tesla is doing poorly here. That's almost entirely down to Musk's public image, not because BYD make better cars. [1] https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

FridayoLeary

This is not surprising as other manufacturers continue moving away from producing cheap cars. One notable exception is dacia. For all the China lovers here it's not a clear sign of Chinese superiority. I saw a video on youtube recently exploring BYD. It's success is due to the fact that the Chinese government as part of their plan to dominate the global car industry gives them massive amounts of money. Which manufacturer can compete with that? European tariffs in the near future looks likely. Among other things the video explores some of BYD's shadier practices including artificially inflating domestic sales and not paying suppliers for up to 9 months. I have my doubts whether their success is sustainable.

ck2

steal this startup idea: you can't buy BYD in the USA (thanks to Biden actually, not current admin) BUT there's a loophole to have a car from Canada in the USA for a year so lease them from Canada to USA buyers for a year at a time

HarHarVeryFunny

I'm sure BYD and other Chinese EVs would dominate here too if it wasn't for tariffs. BYD UK import tariff is 10% BYD US import tariff is 100%

lenerdenator

Proof that if the price is right, you can look past anything.

small_model

Is volume or revenue/profit/margin etc? Quite important to know this.

ecshafer

Musk was saying at the start that Tesla was going to be $80k then scale up so they would have a $10k/20k car. It looks like BYD beat them to it. I guess putting manufacturing in China, giving them all of the tricks of the trade, letting them build consolidated supply chains, letting them iterate on every aspect of manufacturing, and automate it all was a mistake in the long run. pikachu_face.jpg

ainiriand

Here in Spain you see a lot of BYD, considerable amount for Europe. But when I was in Uruguay that was a shock, almost all cabs, all electric cars, and some buses are BYD.

jauntywundrkind

Why has BYD stock been trundling along? They seem like they are so far ahead: incredible blade batteries with ridiculous power density (fast charging)/efficiency/cooling, while being structurally useful (mad cool). And mad popular. I feel like I'm missing something that this company is doing such amazing good work but the stock isn't really moving.

jonathanlydall

I just signed an offer to purchase a BYD Sealion 5, plugin hybrid small-to-medium SUV. I’ve been largely happy with my 2018 Honda Fit and briefly researched a hybrid Fit. In ZAR, the hybrid Fit is listed as ~530K, while the BYD is 570, however the BYD is way bigger, has much nicer interior and insanely more features, including: adaptive cruise control, lane assist (it can basically drive itself for simple traffic), 360 view camera, comparatively huge screen for my Apple CarPlay, sun roof, V2L (allows 2-3kw load off the battery or engine if the battery is low). I largely liked my Honda Fit and my Ballade (that might be a South African model name), but have been annoyed for a long time at them being laggards on things like CarPlay (at least in South Africa, apparently the Fit in other markets had offered it for much longer).