BYD is officially the world’s top seller of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
Tesla delivered 484,507 units in the fourth quarter and 1,808,581 for the full year of 2023.
Instead, BYD sold 526,409 passenger BEVs in the fourth quarter. That’s 8.65 percent higher than Tesla’s fourth-quarter deliveries.
Besides BEVs, the Chinese automotive manufacturer also sold 416,242 passenger PHEVs in the fourth quarter.
Including BEVs and PHEVs, BYD sold 942,651 units in the fourth quarter, which is 94.56 percent higher than Tesla’s deliveries.
The Chinese automotive manufacturer and Tesla were both in the top two in the global BEV market in the third quarter with a 17 percent share, market researcher Counterpoint Research said in a report released on December 18.
Their shares in the same period last year were 13 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
BYD was expected to overtake Tesla as the global BEV market leader in the fourth quarter, Counterpoint said in the report.
It is worth mentioning that BYD, which also previously produced traditional combustion engine units, stopped production and sales of cars powered entirely by internal combustion engines in March 2022, switching to focusing on producing plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) and pure electric cars.