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Editor’s note: BYD is clearly on a huge roll, after more than a decade of growth and rapid innovation. Its sales are booming fast, and it is establishing itself firmly as the #1 plugin vehicle producer in the world, and probably soon the #1 automaker in the world. Larry Evans is also on a roll here revealing more details around BYD’s leadership. Here’s another piece from Larry highlighting BYD’s rapid growth in production capacity. —Zach Shahan
By Larry Evans
According to a recent post citing He Zhiqi, BYD executive vice president, the NEV (new energy vehicle) automaker added production capacity of nearly 200,000 vehicles per month from August to October of this year. The capacity addition of nearly 2.4 million vehicles over the course of a year is greater than Tesla’s total annualized global production (469,796 units in the 3rd quarter multiplied by four equals 1,879,184 units). Note that Tesla’s production capacity, without adding new lines, appears to be about 3 million — but consumer demand is apparently lacking.
In addition, BYD added nearly 200,000 employees, significantly more than Tesla’s total employee count, especially following the layoffs earlier this year.
The BYD executive said that this level of growth is without precedent, which seems like a fair assessment. Despite the growth, BYD is now reportedly still running at capacity and will need to expand more to meet demand. BYD currently has factories under construction in countries like Hungary and Brazil, with several other factories in various stages of planning and construction around the world.
Meanwhile, Tesla sales remain well below capacity, and plans for a factory in Mexico have stalled.
If you looked at BYD’s financials and wondered what they were spending their record revenue and gross margin on, beyond a 33% increase in R&D, this production capacity expansion should help to explain the situation.
Looking at sales rankings, BYD is positioned to potentially become the #2 auto brand globally and solidify a position in the top 5 auto groups as soon as next year. I don’t anticipate BYD stopping there.
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