BYD Sells 4.6M Vehicles in 2025, Meets Revised Sales Goal

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

BYD’s Scale and Global Reach

  • Commenters note BYD’s 4.6M sales as remarkable given fierce domestic competition and foreign trade barriers.
  • Chinese EVs (BYD, others) are described as already dominant or rapidly rising in Australia, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, parts of Europe and the UK; US/Canada are the outliers due to tariffs and regulatory barriers.
  • Low‑end Chinese EVs in the ~$8k–$18k range are repeatedly contrasted with far more expensive Western options.

Comparison with Tesla and Legacy Automakers

  • Many see BYD’s vehicles as comparable to or better than Tesla on value, interior quality and feature set, with Tesla ahead on software and ADAS/FSD.
  • Legacy US/EU automakers are portrayed as structurally sluggish: ICE platforms repurposed as EVs, dealer networks hostile to EVs, focus on high‑margin trucks/SUVs, weak small‑car offerings.
  • Several commenters explicitly liken the situation to US automakers vs Japanese brands in the 1970s–2000s.

Subsidies, Dumping, and Overcapacity

  • One side argues Chinese EV success is heavily subsidy‑driven, with dumping and state‑directed cheap credit exporting deflation and undercutting global competitors.
  • Others counter that all major auto industries are subsidized, that Chinese firms have real cost/technology advantages (batteries, vertical integration, scale), and that “dumping” is often political framing.
  • There is disagreement over how dangerous China’s industrial overcapacity is to its own financial stability vs to foreign producers.

Industrial Policy, Protectionism, and Security

  • Strong concern that losing auto manufacturing to China will further hollow out Western industrial and military capacity.
  • Competing prescriptions:
    • Use tariffs and subsidies to shelter and rebuild domestic production.
    • Or open markets to Chinese competition to force local firms to improve, as with Japanese/Korean entrants.
  • Huawei‑style bans are raised: if telecom gear is blocked on security grounds, should Chinese cars (with rich telematics data) also be? Opinions diverge sharply.

Human Rights and Ethics

  • Amnesty’s poor ranking of BYD on human‑rights due diligence is cited; others note the entire EV supply chain is problematic and argue the methodology is Western‑centric.
  • Several participants say in practice most buyers prioritize price and features over human‑rights concerns, even if they care in principle.

Finance and Market Structure

  • BYD’s flat share price despite operational growth is attributed to intense domestic competition, forward‑looking pricing, and China’s retail‑heavy, tightly managed markets.
  • Tesla’s high valuation is variously defended as justified by autonomy/AI potential or criticized as hype disconnected from fundamentals.