BYD Co. doesn’t have any current plans to enter the U.S. passenger car market, founder Wang Chuanfu said, throwing cold water on the prospect of the Chinese electric-vehicle maker challenging Tesla Inc. in its home market — for now.
The auto titan, which reported that net income more than quintupled last year after it sold a record number of EVs, said at a post-earnings briefing on Wednesday that its home market of China has already entered a “full-expansion phase” for new-energy vehicles.The US is the next biggest EV market after China, where a price war has erupted between BYD, Tesla and other EV makers. Backed by Warren Buffett, BYD has been expanding its footprint overseas, including into Norway, Denmark, the UK, Thailand and Australia. Wang predicted that the development of clean-energy vehicles will lead to a reshuffling within the global auto industry.
Given that BYD isn’t entering the U.S. passenger EV market for now, Wang doesn’t foresee any impact from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which offers generous incentives for selling EVs but has stringent requirements on manufacturing and supply-chain sourcing. Final details of the legislation, passed into law last year, are due to be released on Friday.
BYD sold 1.86 million electric and plug-in hybrids in 2022, more than the previous four years combined. It accounted for about 30% of all new-energy vehicle sales in China, with half of them battery-only EVs. In comparison, Tesla delivered 1.31 million EVs globally.
BYD stopped producing cars powered entirely by fossil fuels last year.
