China’s BYD overtakes Tesla as top car sales
Chinese automaker BYD has overtaken US company Tesla as the world’s top electric vehicle (EV) seller for the first time, experts say, signaling a major shift in the global electric vehicle market compared to last year. This information has emerged from a recent report by CNBC.
In a statement released on Thursday (January 1), BYD said its battery-powered vehicle sales increased by about 28 percent to 2.26 million units in 2025.
Tesla said in a report that it sold 1.64 million vehicles globally in 2025, down about 8 percent from the previous year. In addition, Tesla’s EV supply to the global market fell by 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024.
CNBC reported that this was the first time annual deliveries had fallen. The EV market, which was largely self-contained, is now facing fierce competition, particularly from Hyundai and China’s BYD.
According to analysts, this record is even more significant for the Chinese company because in a 2011 interview with Bloomberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly disparaged BYD as a competitor.
But Tesla’s stock price has rebounded in recent weeks, hitting an all-time high of $489.88 last month, after the company announced it would begin testing self-driving cars in Texas.
