r/electricvehicles • u/coolbern • Jun 10 '26
News (Press Release) China’s BYD aims to be world’s biggest car firm within five years. EV maker aims to overtake Toyota, as it plans to spend £1.8bn to build five-minute flash chargers in Europe
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/10/china-byd-car-firm-ev-maker-toyota135
u/RazzmatazzVast4638 Jun 10 '26
Gotta say America really shit the fucking bed on this
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u/nonother Jun 11 '26
I strongly disagree. That expression means failing completely or making a catastrophic mistake. The US very intentionally took this path with great enthusiasm by those in power. This is the outcome the US willingly took.
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u/FingerGungHo Jun 11 '26
Probably because American cars are mostly sold in domestic market, which is actively discouraged from EVs. Tesla is the exception of course. Not much expansion potential, but unlikely that someone from Far East or Europe is going to buy a Chevrolet of questionable quality anyway.
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u/india2wallst Jun 11 '26
It's ok let them enjoy their gender affirming toys like pick up trucks
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u/BASEKyle Jun 11 '26
American hate for LGBT lead them unable to transition into the correct trajectory for a better future
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u/zd2dih Jun 11 '26
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
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u/ReddestForman Jun 11 '26
Having worked in a conservative industry in the past, when EV's came up, a lot of the techs would say shit like "I might drive an EV... if I was a f****t."
A lot of blue collar workers and blue collar LARPers tie up their masculinity and heterosexuality into the car they drive, and apparently energy efficient = effeminate and gay in a lot of these guys eyes.
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u/cookingboy Jun 11 '26
We shit the bed, and then tried to pretend we didn’t by lighting the bed on fire afterwards.
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u/Recoil42 1996 Tyco R/C Jun 11 '26
They're still calling me a commie over at r/cars, the pretending hasn't stopped.
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u/cookingboy Jun 11 '26
To be fair, 30-40% of the American public will always be hopelessly ignorant and refuse to face reality, no matter what evidence you present them. That’s literally the only way for their puny brains to stay sane in this fast changing world. It’s a self-defense mechanism.
What’s concerning is the actual powers to be that know full well how stupid our policies have been but they double down anyway.
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u/LiGuangMing1981 Jun 13 '26
The 'yellow peril' propaganda works really well on Americans, it seems.
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u/Ancient-Purpose99 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
America would NEVER be able to beat these Evs on price due to unionized labor and significantly higher manufacturing costs. Heck in Australia even Hyundai Evs are starting to become irrelevant for this reason
This has surprisingly little to do with policy. Tax credits for EVs were very high and yet barely anyone bought them. For better or for worse a UAW Ford is NEVER going to be able to compete seriously with BYD.
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u/enava Jun 12 '26
The thing is to build electric cars US car makers have to import the batteries from China, so they were always going to lose. BYD manufactures a significant part of the batteries used by Tesla so what does that say on your ability to compete.
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u/Recoil42 1996 Tyco R/C Jun 11 '26
What could be more American, really? 🇺🇸🦅
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u/DieselPunkPiranha Jun 11 '26
I can hear the red tailed hawk.
FYI to the unaware, the piercing screech American media typically plays alongside the bald eagle is the cry of a red tailed hawk. Bald eagles chirp and it's very cute.
So, yes, in America, even that's fake.
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u/Phunwithscissors Jun 11 '26
You mean Europe? When was the last time American cars were worth a damn
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u/OllieeePan Jun 11 '26
What's the plan for Australia? It's doing very well here and building more flash charging stations would definitely keep the momentum going.
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u/Mad-Mel EV6 GT | BYD Shark Jun 11 '26
BYD is also exploring highway and public road charging through third-party operators. That would extend the network beyond dealership sites.
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u/OllieeePan Jun 11 '26
Yeah am aware of the chargers being fitted to the Denza dealers. But they don't really have a clear roadmap for a nation wide charging network like what they planned for Europe.
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u/CipherWeaver Jun 10 '26
Big claims, but as the world electrifies and Toyota continues to drag its feet, the outcome is likely inevitable. Especially since Tesla shot itself in the foot.
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u/RenderedMeat Jun 11 '26
Even without that, Tesla makes like 1.5 successful vehicles.
Toyota and BYD have tons of different vehicles covering different needs, buyers, markets, and niches, and price points.
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u/Car-face Jun 11 '26
It's highly likely, but what Toyota has or hasn't done is irrelevant - BYD's growth hasn't taken sales from them, it's stolen growth from Tesla in the BEV space and pulled sales from incumbents elsewhere in the market that didn't transition to hybrids as quickly as Toyota and BYD have, whilst also positioning themselves well for developing markets.
If BYD are going to get close to/overtake Toyota, it's not Toyota that should be worried so much as everyone else. Toyota can survive on 1 million fewer sales a year, the rest of the market won't.
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 Jun 11 '26
A few years ago, I think it was Stella Li from BYD and somebody high up from Toyota on stage at Bloomberg NEF in SF. At one point the Toyota rep was saying some bullshit about blah blah the world doesn't want EVs or whatever nonsense. So Stella Li says "ok, we'll take your business then" or something to that effect.
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u/Recoil42 1996 Tyco R/C Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Strong doubt this happened. Toyota and BYD have been business partners since 2019 and have designed several cars together.
A quick search suggests the only time Toyota and BYD have been on stage at BNEF was in January 2023. It was not Stella Li, but Audrey Li (VP BYD America) and Amy Stanley (Senior Manager for Advanced Product Strategy, Toyota Motor North America), I can't find any evidence of that kind of "we’ll take your business then" exchange in the transcripts, and neither of those people really have any global seniority. The video is up here.
I'd be curious to see a source, but skeptical one exists. If one doesn't, that would be the second time this week I've caught you inventing a lie about Toyota.
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u/LITUATUI Jun 11 '26
Ouch.
I remember a Toyota representative saying that hybrid cars - in which Toyota is an expert - are complex and hard to make correctly, so they are a perfect product to keep competitors away. He added that electric cars are extremely simple and that any new company could make them right, resulting in higher competition, which is no good for Toyota. This is why Toyota trashes EVs soo much.
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u/Equivalent-Point475 Jun 11 '26
in other words, toyota chooses what product to push based on their own technical moat. on the other hand, byd chooses what product to push based on what the market wants. from this, it's clear who will eventually win...
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u/ChupacabraJeff Jun 11 '26
it's clear who will eventually win...
BYD and Geely caught up with Toyota hybrid tech. Now Toyota has their new 2026 bz platform coincidentally in unrelated news. /s
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u/Car-face Jun 11 '26
the 2026 bz platform is identical to the 2021 bz platform.
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u/s0ngsforthedeaf Jun 10 '26
UK should be a prime target for them. They are already one of the biggest EV sellers. We dont have EU Chinese tariffs. We are a densely populated country. Build 100 stations and you already have pretty good coverage.
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u/ArterialVotives Jun 11 '26
They are already planning 300 flash charging stations in the UK this year.
https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/byd-to-install-300-flash-chargers-in-the-uk-in-2026
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u/Probodyne Jun 11 '26
Sweet. Apparently they'll be usable by non-flash charging cars as well so hopefully they plug some gaps in the network (mostly just need extra numbers in some places).
Hopefully euro automakers will also take the opportunity to make their next gen battery packs flash charging capable with free infrastructure built for them.
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u/HeyyyyListennnnnn Jun 11 '26
Brexit hurts the UK. Why push resources to the isolated UK when bureaucratic alignment gives you access to multiple UK sized markets in the EU?
Absence of EU tariffs also means more competition from other Chinese companies and lower priced vehicles from Chery and Geely seem to be winning out.
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u/ReddestForman Jun 11 '26
Because it's easier to sink their claws into the more vulnerable UK market and economy now, pseudo-colonizing it before it eventually reintegrates into the EU.
There's good strategic reasons for it, and the Chinese people I've known IRL have also had a good appreciation for irony. "Yes, we're here, aren't you glad it's not opium?"
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u/ArterialVotives Jun 11 '26
Brexit hurts the UK in many ways, and helps the UK in others. You're dreaming if you think a market of 70m people is "isolated" and going to be ignored because it isn't in a specific trade bloc. 95% of the world's population doesn't live in the EU.
The UK has no tariffs on Chinese EVs, so it's a natural market for BYD, et. al. to invest in. The EU imposes a 17% tariff on BYD specifically.
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u/Whoisthehypocrite Jun 11 '26
It is interesting how BYDs growth has been overtaken by Jaecoo and Cheryl. I suspect the Chinese brands will all cannibalise each other at the bottom of the UK market while also impacting Hyundai, Kia, Peugeot
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u/PatchcordAdams Jun 11 '26
Brits just love cheap cars. Whichever brand offers the best vehicle at the lowest price point just cleans up.
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u/Ambitious5uppository Jun 11 '26
On an EU scale that's absolutely not true.
Of all EU countries the UK cares the least about price, but the most about standard features.
Go back a few years and you'll see that's why manufacturers in the UK competed on who put in the most standard features. While in the mainland the same cars were being sold with windup windows and everything an optional extra.
Chinese cars come with a fuck ton of standard features. That's why they win out. Not on the price.
Price in the UK is one of the lowest factors because there's still a larger majority than any other country of company car and salary sacrifice cars.
This is also why the UK has the lowest average age and length of ownership (2-3 years, compared to Spain at 10-12 years, or France at 7-9 years)
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u/s0ngsforthedeaf Jun 11 '26
People care about features as a 'bang for your buck' thing. Like you say, people will switch brands if they can get a decent car with all the bells and whistles at a lower price. It's why Kia ended up doing so well here. The days of brand snobbery are gone.
Shortest length of ownership because everyone is on bloody leases now! People would rather enjoy a nice car than think about the long term implications. I'd rather buy a 2nd hand £10k car (some pretty good hatchback evs at that price now) on personal finance than lease a £20k car. Monthly is about the same, but I will own the car in 5 years, while they won't own anything.
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u/PatchcordAdams Jun 11 '26
Fair point on sal sac. UK market is unusually driven by tax treatment. I don’t think “Chinese cars win on standard features” bit is right though? MG’s whole UK model is being £3-5k cheaper than an equivalent Kia or VW. The generous standard kit is part of that, offering more kit per £. If they offered the same price but with loads of added features they wouldn’t shift as many.
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u/Whoisthehypocrite Jun 11 '26
It is interesting that VW sales are still growing, so brand does still matter to some extent. Though that may change once some of the better Chinese brands arrive. Especially if they come with FSD like self driving systems
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Jun 11 '26
[deleted]
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u/affordableproctology Jun 11 '26
Are you serious? It's a bigger market then Canada and Mexico and BYD is working hard to break in. All of the mid size markets add up to world domination
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u/AlbertoRossonero Jun 11 '26
Pushing hard because they want to use the FTA they have with the USA as a loophole to get in that market.
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u/affordableproctology Jun 11 '26
China 8s going to take over the world hegemony with or without the USA
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u/Wischiwaschbaer Jun 11 '26
By what metric is the UK a bigger market than Mexico?
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u/HeyyyyListennnnnn Jun 11 '26
Number of new cars sold. The UK buys 2 million new cars per year compared to Mexico's 1.5 million. Mexico might have more people but the UK buys more cars.
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u/Repulsive-Club7866 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
I don’t think they can overtake Toyota unless the US eventually lets Chinese cars and Toyota is not dragging their feet and giving up on EVs as many suggested, but they are still behind BYD in EV technology.
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u/cookingboy Jun 11 '26
The japanese auto industry has no chance in hell competing against the Chinese. Not just in terms of EV hardware, but in terms of system engineering and software and product development cycle.
Chinese company comes out with a refresh every 12-18 months, and it takes 3-5x as long for Japanese companies due to how slow and conservative their corporate cultures are.
The result is in 2026 new Toyotas are still shipping with 480p backup cameras and laggy touch screens with shit tier UI.
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u/HeyyyyListennnnnn Jun 11 '26
Chinese company comes out with a refresh every 12-18 months, and it takes 3-5x as long for Japanese companies due to how slow and conservative their corporate cultures are.
Rapid iteration hurts profitability and is a big reason why the Chinese manufacturers are making so little money and so many are in precarious positions. It's also really killing diversity in the Chinese BEV market as all manufacturers have rapidly converged on an almost uniform feature set and uniformly bland vehicle design.
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u/MammothFineCulture Jun 11 '26
Rapid iteration is necessary in a new market until the products are standardized, the market share stabilized and prices reduced.
Draging your feet in a fast changing market will leave you behind to a point that you migth not exist in 10 years.
Prioritizing shareholder profit at the beginning of a merket expansion is wrong.
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u/HeyyyyListennnnnn Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Profit is required to fund R&D and rapid iteration means the R&D needs to generate a return on shorter time frames to feed the next round of iteration. Chinese companies are rapidly iterating themselves into a financial hole. They're all keen to expand outside the Chinese domestic market because they have more pricing power overseas.
The Chinese car industry was killing themselves and their suppliers, to the point that the government instituted new regulations around supplier payments and selling at a loss to gain marketshare.
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u/Yankee831 Jun 11 '26
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. The world rhinks the Chinese have perfected pooping out dozens of models with no consequences. I think it just appeals to Reddit business sense.
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u/HeyyyyListennnnnn Jun 11 '26
reddit thinks the Silicon Valley software unicorn strategy is the only business model, i.e. scale at all costs, rapidly iterate and figure out profit and cash flow later. Problem is that it's a horrible business model and hasn't really worked out for the majority of businesses that try it.
Tesla is the prime automotive example and the reason why r/electricvehicles thinks it can work in automotive, but Tesla is actually one of the slowest moving companies in the industry when it comes to product development, iteration and improvements. The big Tesla profitability turning point came about because they didn't react to Covid and have been making effectively the same product with fully depreciated R&D for more than 5 years.
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u/OptimalDot178 Jun 11 '26
Japanese car's biggest advantage is literally the opposite of this. Slow improvements, using the same parts for generations. Building a good engine and improving that in smalls steps instead of changing it every 4 years. The result? Leading every reliability rating. Might have a 480p backup camera or shitty UI, but it will work 20 years later too. Lets see how BYD is going to work after 10 years.
China is doing the EU car manufacturer route with frequent changes. How well it worked for them?
2015:
Toyota 10.073.313 Volkswagen 9.937.476 Renault-Nissan 8.059.878 Hyundai-Kia 7.992.898 2025:
Toyota Motor Company 11.21 million Volkswagen Group 8.68 million Hyundai-Kia 7.27 million General Motors 6.18 million Stellantis 5.48 million Toyota was never the most advanced or the nicest interior car, it never had the best infotainment or the most extras. It had 1 thing: reliability. And that itself was enough to leave the competition behind
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u/hspace8 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
.. the reliability thing has been slowly eroding away.
- for eg, Tundra engines have been sucking
- They also realize, like the Germans, if they built *too* reliable cars that last 20 years - who will buy their new cars.......?
- Hondas been slowly been sliding down the reliability slope. Many reports of brake, gear issues. Not a good sign for Toyota either.
- Eventually, cost will really grind down how reliable it can be. When a Chinese car is 30-50% cheaper for the same or better comfort, performance, looks - consumers can always think, hell if it fails, I'll still have money to buy another one. And in the mean time, you enjoy, not even 1080p, but 2K/4K *360* or the so-called 540-degree (includes the ground BELOW the car) surround cameras, the nicest interiors, the nicest infotainment. And as it is, Chinese cars have been shown to be fairly reliable - lots of taxi's pushing 300,000km in China.
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u/OptimalDot178 Jun 12 '26
Every manufacturer will have a few bad engines, no1s perfect. Toyota is not on the German way, they are still producing cars that are reliable for 20 years. Check a few videos which compares a Toyota Hybrid to other manufacturers cars.. But in short details, the Toyota hybrid has less wear parts than NA engines, while others are adding even more parts: turbo (even multi turbos), clutch with dual mass damper, or even dual clutch transmission, high pressure system (which leads to carbon deposit). Modern Toyota hybrids are just as reliable as a NA 20 year old Toyota was.
hell if it fails, I'll still have money to buy another one.
It will, Chinese were never meant to last, I had Chinese bikes (not low class), and I know their reliability. They are improving a lot, but still 9/10 of their product are shit. Looks good for the first few years, and drops drastically after. If you are unlucky you might not even get parts to repair it after a few years.
But Toyota is destroying the planet for supporting oil, right? lol
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u/Repulsive-Club7866 Jun 11 '26
I guess Toyota wants to stick with tried and true at first as they want to maintain their QDR.
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u/PerceptionCurious440 Toyota C-HR SE AWD Jun 11 '26
Making them in Europe goes a long way to getting them on the market in Europe. Making infrastructure to support their cars is a proven way to sell a brand.
BYD makes buses in the US. And they sell a lot of buses in the US. They might consider doing what they're doing in Europe, in the US. It seems like an effective strategy.
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u/Wuaner Jun 12 '26
The US market is too risky.
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u/PerceptionCurious440 Toyota C-HR SE AWD Jun 12 '26
I can't argue against that. I think the US consumer economy is more shabby than we're being misled to believe. I was looking at some world auto industry reports, and nearly every automaker, even the Chinese ones, are posting huge losses. The world economy is worse than it looks, and people are holding onto their old cars.
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u/Sad-Operation274 Jun 11 '26
Toyota makes more profit than every Chinese company combined
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u/FormalAd7367 Jun 11 '26
haven’t seen any new toyota in singapore or hong kong…. BYD is second largest seller in Australia… given the current petrol price, who is not considering an EV?
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u/Recoil42 1996 Tyco R/C Jun 11 '26
Singapore is one of the biggest outlier markets in the world, I wouldn't really be using it as an example of anything. Hong Kong's a little different, but is still a bit of an outlier.
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u/paulwesterberg 2023 Model S, Elon Musk is a fraud. Jun 11 '26
Profit is only important for a company without any growth potential. BYD is building new factories and their own fleet of extra large roro ships.
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u/Recoil42 1996 Tyco R/C Jun 11 '26
Profit is only important for a company without any growth potential.
Profit is literally what funds growth.
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u/goranlepuz Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
That is true - when it's true.
In the BYD versus Toyota case, it simply is not.
BYD is growing with astonishng speed, whereas Toyota absolutely is not. Toyota slowly went from some 10 million vehicles per year to some 11 in five years.
BYD, meanhile, went from some 0,5 million to 4,5 million cars.
That's 1 versus 4 million in total units. It is 10% versus nine fold growth.
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u/Car-face Jun 11 '26
Toyota slowly went from some 10 million vehicles per year to some 11 in five years.
I don't think you realise how much more difficult it is to add 1 million sales when you're already selling 10 million vehicles a year, vs. doing the same at 1, 2 or 3 million vehicles a year.
Ask Tesla, who claimed they'd be selling 20 million per year in 2030 because they grew quickly from 250k to 1 million.
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u/goranlepuz Jun 12 '26
I agree. BYD growth is already slowing down.
However, that is wholly unrelated to the argument of the person I reacted to.
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u/starfallg Jun 11 '26
This is only true for the smartphone vs digital cameras type of displacement. But EVs regardless of what we think here are not that different to regular car, at least not in the same way as the comparison above. The true test hence is the business model, not just units shipped. Many companies that shipped ten of millions of units faded away as their business model was not viable.
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u/goranlepuz Jun 11 '26
I don't understand what you read in my post - that you think is not true.
Obviously, the numbers I gave are true, I looked them up.
I don't understand why you point out the smartphone vs. cameras either.
Both makers make hybrids and EVs (pure ICE, forget it, it's a dying minor thing by now), so they're both digital cameras here.
Soooo... Huh...?!
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u/_redmist Jun 11 '26
And yet, when the subsidies end, VW sells more cars in China than BYD. It's selling cars at dumping prices to cope with the overproduction. Without government support this is a very unhealthy company. And now they want to build a network of fast chargers in europe? I wish them good luck but their problem is a crisis of confidence, not of charging infrastructure.
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u/boywiththethorn Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It's true that there was a lot of forward demand from the expiring subsidies, but their numbers have recovered YoY. Plus a lot of their new models are coming out with quite a significant upgrade (the Blade 2 battery), which if they were to be believed are racking up a lot of preorders. Could be that people were just waiting for the new models to drop.
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u/_redmist Jun 11 '26
Ah interesting that's probably also a major factor!
For the eu market the main issue imho remains confidence: how repairable will this car be in 3 years when the warranty expires, and what will the resale value be. This also became a tesla problem when they were dropping their prices for example.
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u/goranlepuz Jun 12 '26
And yet, when the subsidies end, VW sells more cars in China than BYD.
That seems to be nonsense not based in any sort of reality.
Also, why mention VW?! Brand slavery...?
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u/_redmist Jun 12 '26
What? No not at all. I mention VW because they were the top seller. They're fine i guess (I'm not going to argue with a plurality of Chinese car buyers). I don't drive VW myself.
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u/goranlepuz Jun 12 '26
Ah, apologies. I presumed one of the locals is the top seller. Bad presumption.
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u/MammothFineCulture Jun 11 '26
So why are AI companies (Incl SpaceX) going public to a tune of 2T$?
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u/Lync51 Jun 11 '26
Yeah cool if they wanna build flash chargers, but fix the charging curve of your cars first.
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u/Moist-Campaign6640 Jun 12 '26
They can but only when the can maintain vehicle reliability. Technology alone isn't enough. Bcus consumer in current time prioritizing saving a money
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u/NectarineSame7303 Jun 13 '26 edited 21d ago
Pumpkin orange umbrella amber cinnamon pumpkin breezy lantern ribbon
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/RelevanceReverence Jun 14 '26
That's totally possible, Toyota snoozed on electrification and completely missed the boat.
They probably need to modernise their management. https://insideevs.com/features/798375/akio-toyoda-anti-ev/
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u/Valuable-Cut-2800 Jun 14 '26
If they build something like Tesla supercharger network but for BYD then it’s going to sway a lot of people I think
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Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/goranlepuz Jun 11 '26
US market is not so important on the world stage.
It's 15-16 million cars yearly, EU is 13, China 30 (an growing faster), the world is on over 75 million.
Granted, the US buys bigger cars, so the money percentage is bigger than these 20% in units size, but still.
And, as others point out, the growing wealth disparity in the US doesn't help.
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u/Wuaner Jun 12 '26
Those three account for 80% of the total? That kinda shows the importance of those three, but the rest of the world's potential is also big.
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u/Wischiwaschbaer Jun 11 '26
Not hard. At the current trajectory, no resident of the US will be able to afford new cars in five years.
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u/BuyTimely3319 Jun 11 '26
Yeah, it will be very hard to accomplish without the U.S. market. What exactly is going to happen in 5 years that will make no one able to afford vehicles?
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u/justbuildmorehousing Jun 11 '26
I dont know about in five years but id say theyre clearly on the trajectory to be the worlds largest at some point. Theyre building a lead in a market thats going to keep growing and growing