Posted on 01/02/2026 8:27:32 PM PST by SeekAndFind
China's BYD has overtaken Elon Musk's Tesla as the world's biggest seller of electric vehicles (EVs), marking the first time it has outpaced its American rival in annual sales.
Tesla car sales dropped by nearly 9% in 2025 to 1.64 million vehicles sold worldwide, the carmaker said on Friday - its second consecutive year of falling car deliveries.
Those figures placed Tesla behind BYD, which said on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered cars rose last year by almost 28% to more than 2.25 million.
The US firm has faced a tough year with a mixed reception to new offerings, unease over Musk's political activities and intensifying competition from Chinese rivals.
Tesla's car sales fell 16% during the last three months of 2025. The drop was partly due to the repeal of a government subsidy that had helped knock as much as $7,500 (£5,570) off the price of certain battery electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel cell vehicles.
Wall Street analysts have recently lowered their Tesla sales estimates for 2026, signalling an increasingly gloomy outlook.
Chinese firms such as Geely, MG, and BYD - now the country's largest electric car company - have put pressure on Western rivals by pricing their vehicles below established brands.
In October, Tesla responded by launching lower-priced versions of its two best selling models in the US in a bid to boost sales.
Musk, who is already the world's richest man, is tasked with significantly boosting Tesla's sales and stock market value over the next decade to secure a record-breaking pay package. The deal, which was approved by shareholders in November, could see him getting a payout of as much as $1tn (£740bn).
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
BYD = Bring Your Dollar.
Does anyone know if China is subsidizing EVs in its internal market? China seems to be huge on EVs. Just wondering if that’s real demand or a market distorted by government fiat. If the latter, then I wonder if there’s a bubble forming and a crash coming.
China’s build and park but call them sold scam
RE: Does anyone know if China is subsidizing EVs in its internal market?
For BYD? ABSOLUTELY. BYD is one of the largest recipients of China’s EV subsidies.
🔹 Direct subsidies: $3.7 billion. See here:
https://electrek.co/2024/04/12/china-gave-byd-an-incredible-3-7-billion-to-win-the-ev-race/
The Kiel Institute study shows:
• BYD received €220 million in 2020
• Rising to €2.1 billion in 2022
• Subsidies increased from 1.1% of revenue to 3.5% over that period
This makes BYD the single largest beneficiary of China’s EV subsidy program.
China continues to offer trade‑in subsidies for new energy vehicles (NEVs), which include BYD’s EVs and hybrids.
Consumers can receive:
• 12% rebate (up to RMB 20,000) for buying a new NEV
This program disproportionately benefits BYD because:
• BYD dominates the NEV segment
• BYD’s average selling price is lower than Tesla’s, making subsidies more impactful
But before we cry UNFAIR. Let’s look at Tesla...
Tesla has also received significant U.S. government support, but the type of support is very different from China’s subsidies to BYD.
The Washington Post investigation shows:
• Elon Musk’s companies (including Tesla) have received $38 billion in government funding over 20 years.
• Tesla specifically has earned $11.4 billion in regulatory credits from federal and state programs.
• Tesla buyers benefited from the $7,500 federal EV tax credit (until Tesla hit the 200,000‑vehicle cap in 2019).
These are real subsidies — but they are market‑based incentives, not direct industrial subsidies.
See here:
https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117951/documents/HHRG-119-JU08-20250227-SD008-U8.pdf
and here:
https://fourwheelask.com/does-tesla-receive-government-subsidies/
Ain’t that a brand of underwear.
The Chico s mandated the manufacturing of as many as they could make and essentially sold them to themself in order to make this claim. They are mostly rusting away in fields through China hidden from view.
BYD makes better cars than Tesla. Not a close run thing either.
This is like comparing a Cadillac to a Yugo.
Red China “sells” (at a fantastic discount) to several “third world” locations where Red China seeks a grip on power and sometimes resources.
I saw a video showing near empty shopping centers in china being used to store unsold electric cars indoors on floor after floor. It also showed how badly built they are.
In China cars made are cars sold with regards to GDP
Yes China is subsidizing just about everything, but my main question is who is buying these cars.
Africans, Cubans…. don’t imagine average Chinese can afford these things and/or have a place to plug them in.
Could you give a source for that claim, color me doubtful
Saw quite a few stories on Russians complaints about Chinese cars being crap, and that says a lot when compared to ladas 🤔
Agree maybe they will try to prove things from China do last long.
What I have to wonder is that who in their right mind would want a Chinese built EV? From what I have read, they have a high rate of failure. Of course there are many who have no use for an EV regardless of where it is built. Wouldn’t touch on with a 10 ft. pole myself & part of that reasoning is,admittedly, I think we have very few charging facilities in our area. The other thought is that I don’t think we have many shops here willing to work on them. Parts availability, especially for some China built rig, would be very unreliable.
Then using globalist laws to run the petrol vehicle industry off so they can get what they want.
Thanks for that excellent background.
You need to travel more. I was in Shanghai in 2024 BYD and Nio where everywhere our rental was a BYD (NEV) a plug in hybrid. It looked like a 3 series BMW and drive fantastically. There were charger poles around the edges of every condo complex and apartment block and huge Bucees sized fast DC charger places with 25 plus stalls their grid is triple phase 440 volt everywhere they build a modern grid not a 19th century 120v/240v split phase monstrosity. Triple phase 440 volt is 240 volt phase to ground the everyday voltage. So it takes 3 wires only in delta to get Triple phase 440 AC which their GB/T EB plug uses natively. 63 amps at 440 is bone standard thats 72kw just from the average pole mounted L2 the GB/T fast DC was demonstrated retail at 1000 amps and 1000v for a megawatt no one else on earth has put 1MW fast DC into commercial use and BYD vehicles can use it that means 3-5 min 10% to 100% charges.
As for the average Chinese they are buying them China has a middle class larger than the entire population of the USA or the EU. The numbers speak for themselves.
“In 2024, China registered 11.25 million new NEVs, a year-on-year increase of 51.49 percent, accounting for 41.83 percent of all new vehicle registrations.”
https://cnevpost.com/2025/06/10/shanghai-nevs-1-5-million/
Their taxis and busses are all NEVs too. Clean modern and safe as well.
“The city added 1,940 new energy buses in 2024, bringing the total number of such vehicles to 16,356, accounting for 96.21 percent of all buses.
In 2024, 2,700 new energy taxis were put into operation in Shanghai, with 95 percent of the city’s taxis now being NEVs.”
They don’t tolerate crime or an underclass. Shanghai put NYC to shame in modernity it’s like stepping into a futuristic movie everything is new modern LED screens that are building sized. AI driven cars are everywhere they have been doing L3 FSD since at least 2024 in commercial service. We are so far behind , it’s old folks coping and coping hard. China is two countries it’s rural is nothing like it’s urban the urban economic zones have special economic laws they are CINOs communist in name only, entrepreneurship is the norm and small business is cut throat and everywhere. Oh and tax evasion or laundering is a death sentence so is loan sharking. They are accurately one party cronie capitalists which is not all that far from the two party cronie capitalist system we have here. To underestimate them is a mistake they will have more solar capacity by 2028 than the sum total of the entire US grid capacity all in and they are building 150 new nukes on top of that and a Texas worth of wind every year as well. Their rate of infrastructure build out is unmatched anywhere, plus two huge hydro power to be used to back up all that wind and solar those hundred gigawatt plus projects each are the “batteries” when the sun shines and the wind blows they hold the way water back when it doesn’t and at night they spin the water turbines it’s elegant and simple. They already have the 1 million volt DC lines to send that power to the cities in the east plus 1 million volt AC lines to distribute it once in region. They are the only country on earth with a supergrid 32 million volt lines and they keep building more. The USA better start doing similar or it will be China’s century.
There is not enough gas in North America nor gas turbine production capacity to build out terawatts of energy for the AI war nor for the manufacturing basses. At the terawatt levels shale gas goes no less thn a decade as a petroleum Geo this is fact. It’s a matter of scale only nuclear, solar and wind and engineered geothermal can scale to multiple hundred terawatts of energy needed for the 21st century economy.
Humans have the storage tech today right now to absorb gigawatt at a time in dense locations or underground using the earth itself as the storage unit. Right now this second power in Texas is $2.48 megawatt hour that’s 2/10s of a cent per kWh ERCOT curtailed gas first then wind as the sun came up solar is ripping today and it’s the cheapest form of energy in Texas consistently under $5 MWh and will go negative today around noon. Energy storage allows you to buy at near zero and sell it back at 8 tonight when the gas turbines spin up burning $4.4 MMBTU gas which is $20 per megawatt hours just in fuel LHV alone to break even turbines need $50 and it will be $60-80 tonight on the wholesale auctions. Yes I am a power producer with a VPP so I see in real time the bids, calls and closings.
Texas has been adding solar like gangbusters to cover our AI hyper scalers and bitcoin mining, plus Tesla is cranking out megapacks for the load leveling and arbitrage opportunities. Elon is an adopted Texan we love him.
In inflation adjusted money Texas power got cheaper as we added the nation’s most wind AND solar by far.
Here is the comparison to the other states in inflation adjusted money, solar is the fastest growing energy source in Texas we will have 75,000 megawatts worth by 2030 that’s just what has been financed and permitted more is coming. That more than doubles the size of the Texas renewables you add in the 40,000 megawatts of megapacks also financed permitted and approved those are 4 hr minimum rated packs could be 8s but to be permitted they are minimum 4. Which means we have the equivalent of 40 new 1GW nukes for any four hour peak demand period coming.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1990816983772705226
How much did wind and solar actually make in total megawatt hours yon ask? More than natural gas combined cycle turbines. Peaker and simple cycle are in purple and only 7% of the total about what our two nukes made.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1990813803336941855
This speaks for itself.
Remember all Republican controlled government all three branches in Texas for 20+ years.
Also a open for profit grid with 15 minute rolling bids by power producers to the wholesale market directly via the legislature created ERCOT entity.
Look at the blue and yellow bars there is a clear signal being sent.
https://x.com/mattbuford/status/1990815065537130764
Texas at least is not being left behind we need to build out French levels of new nukes we have Aalo in Austin that will go first critical in their sodium reactor by July 4 they already shipped there reactor from their factory in Austin to the national lab they are one of 3 others the DOE picked to go crit. Once they NRC cert they will be Henry Ford them at their Austin factory. They plan on 90 days from signing the PPA to first power eventually and sub 3 cent per kWh of they can get MOX fuel then they can do fuel cycles into the decades mark and sub 2 cent per kWh is a real thing. Fast breeders or breed and burn in this case opens a world of electricity billions of years worth vs 50 with PWR or BWR tech. We must burn Pu239 not U235 one is made from U238 that’s 99.93% of earth’s uranium the other is 0.07% and 0.02% gets left behind from the beginning. So only 0.05% makes it to get burnt and the spent fuel still contains 0.09,% of the original 5-8% enriched it’s a crime against humanity to bury spent fuel and should be to use it at all in a PWR or BWR only fast spectrum reactors should be built.
Forgot here is the wholesale auctions closing bids Right now solar and wind is ripping. It’s sunny no clouds over Texas and windy in West Texas cold front came through it was 18F this morning at sun up.
DateTime Real-Time Hub Avg. Real-Time
2026-01-18 00:15:00 32.72 36.08
2026-01-18 00:30:00 31.37 33.69
2026-01-18 00:45:00 37.31 39.99
2026-01-18 01:00:00 37.03 39.43
2026-01-18 01:15:00 32.66 34.84
2026-01-18 01:30:00 32.48 34.12
2026-01-18 01:45:00 32.75 34.38
2026-01-18 02:00:00 33.88 35.54
2026-01-18 02:15:00 33.82 35.4
2026-01-18 02:30:00 32.83 34.33
2026-01-18 02:45:00 32.88 34.18
2026-01-18 03:00:00 31.04 32.36
2026-01-18 03:15:00 31.73 33.07
2026-01-18 03:30:00 33.82 35.21
2026-01-18 03:45:00 35.76 37.19
2026-01-18 04:00:00 34.66 35.91
2026-01-18 04:15:00 35.44 36.45
2026-01-18 04:30:00 34.81 35.51
2026-01-18 04:45:00 35.12 35.3
2026-01-18 05:00:00 35.35 35.46
2026-01-18 05:15:00 30.13 30.13
2026-01-18 05:30:00 30.96 30.96
2026-01-18 05:45:00 31.64 31.7
2026-01-18 06:00:00 30.31 30.31
2026-01-18 06:15:00 26.34 26.34
2026-01-18 06:30:00 26.32 26.32
2026-01-18 06:45:00 25.52 25.52
2026-01-18 07:00:00 26.13 26.13
2026-01-18 07:15:00 29.42 29.96
2026-01-18 07:30:00 28.99 30.8
2026-01-18 07:45:00 26.18 27.63
2026-01-18 08:00:00 22.18 23.43
2026-01-18 08:15:00 18.78 19.92
2026-01-18 08:30:00 16.25 16.25
2026-01-18 08:45:00 13.42 10.47
2026-01-18 09:00:00 6.95 1.39
2026-01-18 09:15:00 3.59 -0.05
2026-01-18 09:30:00 3.33 0.37
2026-01-18 09:45:00 2.89 0.49
2026-01-18 10:00:00 2.56 0.64
2026-01-18 10:15:00 3.12 1.07
2026-01-18 10:30:00 4.41 2.15
2026-01-18 10:45:00 4.73 2.48
2026-01-18 11:00:00 3.58 1.4
2026-01-18 11:15:00 3.14 1.01
2026-01-18 12:00:00
2026-01-18 13:00:00
2026-01-18 14:00:00
2026-01-18 15:00:00
2026-01-18 16:00:00
2026-01-18 17:00:00
2026-01-18 18:00:00
2026-01-18 19:00:00
2026-01-18 20:00:00
2026-01-18 21:00:00
2026-01-18 22:00:00
2026-01-18 23:00:00
2026-01-19 00:00:00
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