Biggest growth?
BYD has grown rapidly in recent years in terms of models, production and market share worldwide. Now, however, there seems to be a bit of a slowdown.
We in the Netherlands have known BYD for some time now, but in its home country, China, it has been one of the biggest players in the automotive industry for years. Globally, it is even the largest producer of plug-in cars, so that says something. Here in Europe, it is still rolling out new models and is also working on local production. It seems like it can’t be stopped for BYD. Yet something is slowly changing now.
Reuters reports that BYD’s seemingly endless growth is starting to slow down. So much so that BYD is forced to reconsider planned expansion. That is: BYD is slowing down the pace of production expansion and has even reportedly cut some services in some Chinese factories. At some factories, a third fewer cars are now rolling off the assembly line than before. Nevertheless, BYD is still aiming for just under 30 percent sales growth this year, to 5.5 million cars.
In the Netherlands, growth also seems to be flattening out somewhat. It initially went fast, as BYD sold 180 passenger cars in the Netherlands in 2022 (the first year), followed by 1,230 in 2023 and 3,210 in 2024. This year (through May), the count is 1,345 according to our data, and it appears that the number will be roughly a repeat of last year. That’s despite the fact that there are more models involved. We are curious what the newcomers can mean for BYD. In any case, there is still interesting stuff in the pipeline in the longer term.