BYD production reduces for first time in 17 months as it expansion momentum takes a break
On August 1st this year, Reuters reported that for the first time since BYD started its global expansion, its vehicle production fell 0.9 percent in July from a year earlier, ending a 16-month growth streak that has catapulted this once little known Chinese car manufacturer into the world’s largest electric vehicle maker.
BYD has cancelled night shifts and reduced output by at least a third of the capacity at some of its factories, said sources to Reuters who declined to be named because the matter is private.
These previously unreported measures were imposed on at least four factories and BYD had also suspended some plans to set up new production lines, one of the people said.
BYD, which sold 4.27 million cars last year, mostly in China, has at least seven car factories in the country and it has targeted a near 30 percent rise in sales to 5.5 million this year.
Did you know that BYD made a staggering 317,892 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) globally just last month, while sales edged up 0.6 percent to 344,296 vehicles, slowing sharply from a 12 percent increase in June.
With electric vehicle sales accounting for 41 percent of its more than 4 million vehicle sales last year, BYD has overtaken the American world’s top EV seller, Tesla. Yes, BYD is now bigger than Tesla.
Meanwhile Tesla’s steady decline in European sales since the start of the year, it is nevertheless a stark sign of shifting tides that Chinese rival BYD has, for the first time, overtaken the American EV maker in the region’s EV sales rankings.
Tesla’s April BEV sales fell sharply, down 49 percent compared to the same month last year while BYD’s sales numbers surged by 169 percent. The result saw Tesla slip to 11th place on the European’s BEV sales chart, with BYD one spot ahead.
