In the medium term, BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is shooting for more than 3 million car and light truck sales a year worldwide, two of the sources said.
BYD did not respond to requests for comment about sales targets.
Global consultancy LMC Automotive believes the idea of selling more than 3 million vehicles before 2030 is not far-fetched, although it said most sales would still be in China.
LMC said BYD’s ability to offer a full range of globally attractive and well-priced full EVs in mainstream and premium markets made its sales aspirations credible.
Zhang Wei, founder of Yuanhao Capital Management and BYD’s 10th biggest shareholder as of the first quarter of 2022, believes BYD’s prospects should be even better.
He told Reuters the 3 million target would be within reach by around 2025 and BYD should be able to sell 10 million vehicles a year by the early 2030s.
Zhang, who began building a sizable stake in BYD around 2015, told Reuters he likes the company because its chairman has created the kind of vertically integrated, cost-competitive electric carmaker Elon Musk is still struggling to achieve.
Unlike many rivals, BYD can meet most of its battery and EV systems needs alone. It sources key battery materials in part from its mines in China and makes its own batteries and semiconductors, including the power-management chips that are crucial components in EVs, Zhang said.
“Other than windshields and tires, they can make on their own just about everything in the car. They have their own construction company that helps build factories. That’s how they can speed things up,” he said. “I would say BYD at this point is already better positioned than Tesla in the EV era.”
According to two Toyota officials who are close to Toyota’s joint R&D centoer with BYD in Shenzhen, BYD’s product development cost is 20 percent to 30 percent lower than at the Japanese carmaker.
“The high level of vertical integration in its battery supply chain gives it a clear cost advantage over similar carmakers, an enabler for rapid expansion both within and outside of China,” LMC analyst Al Bedwell said.
Still, even though BYD is taking a cautious approach toward the United States now, it will likely focus on the U.S. market in the longer term, the sources said.
“America is going to be a key, key part of this global push strategy,” one said.
