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Although Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has been a driving force in the electric vehicle market for many years, China’s BYD is making an aggressive bid for the top spot, according to CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia.
In fact, BYD wants to take more than just the EV market. The company is also challenging Tesla’s dominance of the fast-charging battery sector, CNBC reports.
While it’s not a major player in the U.S. because of a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs imposed by former President Joe Biden, BYD is known around the world and has outpaced Tesla in sales. The company reported revenue of 777 billion yuan ($107 billion) for 2024, compared to Tesla’s $97.7 billion, according to CNN.
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BYD is also making strong inroads in Europe, particularly in the U.K., where monthly sales have surged 880% in the last year, CNBC reports, helping make that nation its largest market outside of China.
Its global popularity and growing market share have created an opportunity for BYD to introduce its battery tech to the European market. Last month, the company opened a facility in the UK to service electric buses, according to CNBC. Now, BYD is looking to increase its market share by developing super-fast charging technology.
BYD says its super-fast chargers will allow owners to charge their EVs in about the same time that it takes a gasoline-powered car to fill its tank. That would give drivers 250 miles of range in roughly five minutes, CNBC says. Tesla’s super-fast chargers offer a maximum range of 200 miles and need 15 minutes to fully charge.
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If BYD can roll its chargers out on a large scale across Europe, it would give buyers another reason to choose it over Tesla. More importantly, BYD’s fast charging technology has a variety of other applications. It could serve as back-up power for data centers or other facilities in the industrial sector.
Still, it’s hard to imagine the Chinese EV maker reaching its full profit potential without access to the U.S. market. Those Biden-era tariffs are high enough to basically cancel out BYD’s affordability advantage over Tesla, and it doesn’t look like they’re going away under the current administration.