BYD Outdelivers Tesla Globally in Second Quarter as Export Strategy Offsets Steep Domestic Decline
Published on 07/18/2026 at 18:05 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The Chinese electric-vehicle giant BYD has posted record international sales that propelled it past Tesla in battery-electric deliveries during the second quarter of 2026, yet the stock remains stuck well below last year’s highs as a dramatic collapse in its home market underscores the cost of an increasingly overseas-driven growth model. Shares closed at €9.90 on Friday, down 1.75 percent on the day, and still trade 33.1 percent below the 52-week peak of €14.80 touched in July 2025. Even a 9.39 percent recovery over the past month has failed to restore confidence in a company whose global ambitions are running into a harsh domestic reality.
Between April and June, BYD shipped 557,090 pure battery-electric vehicles worldwide, comfortably ahead of Tesla’s 480,126 units. The performance marks the first time the Shenzhen-based manufacturer has clearly taken the global BEV crown on a quarterly basis. Stella Li, BYD’s executive vice-president, used the momentum to reiterate a long-term target: overtaking Toyota as the world’s largest automaker by sales volume within five years—without even entering the US passenger-car market. The scale of the challenge remains enormous given that BYD sold around 4.5 million vehicles in 2025 versus Toyota’s 10.5 million, but the trajectory is shifting fast.
Nowhere is that shift more visible than in Europe. While Tesla’s continental sales tumbled 26.9 percent in 2025 to 238,656 units, BYD more than tripled its own to 187,657—a gain of roughly 270 percent. The trend has continued into 2026: in the first five months of this year, Tesla registered 118,000 new cars in Europe, up 57 percent, but BYD’s tally of 135,307 vehicles represented a 145 percent surge. In May alone the Chinese group grabbed a 2.8 percent market share on the continent, placing it ahead of Ford, Tesla and Nissan. To sustain the advance, BYD is planning to invest about €2 billion in roughly 3,000 fast-charging points across Europe by 2027, while simultaneously pushing into the premium segment with the electric Denza Z supercar, priced from £142,900.
The global factory network is expanding in parallel. In Brazil, BYD’s Camaçari plant in Bahia state rolled its 100,000th vehicle—a Seagull—off the line on July 16, barely a year after production commenced in July 2025. The facility, the largest BYD factory outside China at 4.6 million square metres, has an initial annual capacity of 150,000 units and employs more than 5,500 people. From August 2026 the site will add press, body and paint shops to transition from semi-knocked-down assembly to fully localised manufacturing, with a targeted capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year. BYD’s Brazil management, led by country manager Li Tie and senior vice-president Baldy, aims for a 50 percent localisation rate by early 2027 and to become the country’s best-selling auto brand by 2030. Export orders for Argentina and Mexico already total more than 100,000 units, and BYD has overtaken Hyundai to become Brazil’s fourth-largest car brand after selling over 100,000 vehicles in the first half of 2026.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying BYD?
The factory milestone, however, has been tarnished by labour allegations. A union meeting on July 9 raised claims of moral and sexual harassment at the Camaçari site, with reports mentioning hundreds of cases. BYD denied the allegations, stating that the union leader had referred only to isolated incidents. The company stressed it maintains a zero-tolerance policy and a confidential whistleblower channel. The union is now demanding a 15 percent pay rise, a meal allowance of 850 reais, and concrete anti-harassment measures.
Elsewhere, BYD’s manufacturing expansion continues in Thailand, where the Rayong plant—its first passenger-vehicle base outside China—has accumulated more than 130,000 deliveries since opening. The factory, which has an annual capacity of 150,000 units and employs over 5,000 people (93 percent of them Thai), builds five models with 50 percent local content. In Pakistan, the company received its largest single shipment to date: more than 2,000 units arriving by roll-on/roll-off vessel at Karachi port, handled by local partner Mega Motor Company.
All this international momentum is needed because BYD’s home market is bleeding. In the first half of 2026 the group sold 1,777,321 vehicles worldwide, a 16.1 percent year-on-year drop, but domestic deliveries plunged 45.9 percent to just 795,169 units. The gap between shrinking China sales and soaring exports—which rose 65.3 percent in the same period—has become the defining tension for the company. BYD has raised its 2026 overseas sales target to 1.5 million vehicles, and chairman Wang Chuanfu told shareholders in June that he expects the group to become the world’s largest automaker within three to five years. Alongside production bases in Hungary, Thailand and Indonesia, BYD is also building its brand visibility through sponsorship deals with Paris Saint-Germain, Brazil’s Corinthians and Bahia, and has reportedly held talks with Formula 1’s governing bodies about a future entry using an electrified V8 engine.
BYD at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
For now, the stock market remains unconvinced. The contrasting trajectories of BYD’s global expansion and its domestic retreat are keeping the shares well below last year’s peak, even as the company demonstrates that it can take the global EV sales lead from Tesla without relying on a US market that remains off-limits for its passenger cars.
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