China’s BYD Has No Plans to Challenge Tesla in US Anytime Soon

Linda Lew and Danny Lee, Bloomberg News

Wang Chuanfu, chairman and chief executive officer of BYD Co., speaks during a news conference in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. BYD's profit more than quintupled last year after the Chinese automaker sold a record number of electric vehicles and stepped up its battle with Tesla Inc. for market share. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- BYD Co. doesn’t have any current plans to enter the US passenger car market, founder Wang Chuanfu said, throwing cold water on the prospect of the Chinese electric-vehicle maker challenging Tesla Inc. in its home market — for now.

The auto titan, which reported that net income more than quintupled last year after it sold a record number of EVs, said at a post-earnings briefing on Wednesday that its home market of China has already entered a “full-expansion phase” for new-energy vehicles.

The US is the next biggest EV market after China, where a price war has erupted between BYD, Tesla and other EV makers. Backed by Warren Buffett, BYD has been expanding its footprint overseas, including into Norway, Denmark, the UK, Thailand and Australia. Wang predicted that the development of clean-energy vehicles will lead to a reshuffling within the global auto industry.

Read more: BYD Aims to Rule EV World by Being Anything But Tesla

Given that BYD isn’t entering the US passenger EV market for now, Wang doesn’t foresee any impact from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which offers generous incentives for selling EVs but has stringent requirements on manufacturing and supply-chain sourcing. Final details of the legislation, which was passed into law last year, are due to be released on Friday.

BYD sold 1.86 million electric and plug-in hybrids in 2022, more than the previous four years combined. It accounted for about 30% of all new-energy vehicle sales in China, with half of them battery-only EVs. In comparison, Tesla delivered 1.31 million EVs globally.

BYD stopped producing cars powered entirely by fossil fuels last year.