Imported BYD vehicles are parked at a port in Yokohama, Japan, March 27, 2025.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Chinese auto giant BYD on Friday dethroned U.S. rival Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles on a calendar-year basis.
The milestone caps an extraordinary rise for BYD, a company Tesla CEO Elon Musk once dismissed by laughing at their products during a 2011 Bloomberg interview.
In a statement published Thursday, BYD said sales of its battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units.
Musk openly laughed at the mention of BYD while being interviewed on Bloomberg TV in October 2011. He said he did not see the company as a competitor to Tesla, adding: “I don’t think they have a great product.”
Meanwhile, Tesla said Friday it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, in line with a company-compiled estimate of 1.6 million vehicle deliveries. The annual figure is roughly an 8% drop from 2024, the company’s second straight annual drop.
Deliveries for Q4 2025 were about 16% lower than the fourth quarter of 2024, when Musk’s EV company reported 495,570 deliveries.
Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales reported by Tesla, but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.
Tesla has endured a roller-coaster ride this year. The company saw shares collapse in the first quarter of 2025 amid stiff competition, particularly from Chinese EV manufacturers, and reputational fallout from Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric.
The stock price has come roaring back in recent weeks, however, notching an all-time closing high of $489.88 last month, after Musk said the company had been testing driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas, with no occupants on board, almost six months after launching a pilot program with safety drivers.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
