Chinese automaker BYD is transforming the electric vehicle market, surpassing Tesla’s sales in more than 20 countries and regions over the past five years as it embraces risk and expands globally to overcome waning sales at home.

A dramatic reversal occurred last year in the UK as BYD’s annual sales surpassed Tesla’s for the first time. That spring, at a dealership in west London, BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu posed for a photo with a customer who bought an Atto 3 EV.

The Atto 3, which BYD chose as its first passenger export vehicle in 2021, gets its name from the word “attosecond,” a unit of time equivalent to one quintillionth of a second. The company chose the name to convey its rapid pursuit of technology and performance.

In 2021, Wang often spoke about speed in company meetings.

“Toyota Motor and Volkswagen are a little slow in electrifying their vehicles, but once they make a leap, the impact will be huge,” he said at the time. “BYD absolutely has to be faster.” Outpacing other companies was necessity for survival.

The plan worked. Global sales expanded rapidly, and in the four years from 2021, BYD entered 113 countries and regions.

Nikkei compared BYD and Tesla’s sales figures for 2020 and 2025 using data from S&P Global Mobility. BYD overtook Tesla in 22 countries and regions. In addition to European nations like the UK, Spain, and Italy, the automaker also passed Tesla in Hong Kong and Singapore, where luxury vehicles are said to have a large market share. Last year, BYD toppled Tesla as the world’s top EV seller.

The average price of BYD’s passenger vehicles in China last year was RMB 114,000 (USD 16,478.8) according to a Chinese research company. The automaker has kept costs down by producing batteries and core components in-house. Its highly price competitive EVs have flowed into the global market in a steady drip.

One such destination is Uruguay, with a population of about 3.4 million and a new-vehicle market of just 70,000 units.

BYD laid the groundwork for its full entry into Uruguay by conducting road tests of electric buses in the early 2010s. It has since delivered large electric buses and electric taxis and built relationships with the local government and dealers.

Elsewhere in South America, at Peru’s port of Chancay—about 80 kilometers north of the capital, Lima—Chinese-made vehicles are neatly lined up on the quay.

The port, built with Chinese capital as a component of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, began full-scale operations in June 2025. Much of the cargo bound for South America from Asia previously passed through ports in Central or North America.

The China-backed port opened a direct route. Transport times have been slashed to about 25 days, down by around 10 days.

During its expansion, BYD has encountered friction in North America and Europe. Plans for a passenger vehicle factory in Mexico, which BYD hoped to use as an avenue into North America past high tariff barriers, were scrapped last year as US President Donald Trump’s administration put pressure on the Mexican government.

In his election campaign, Trump had blasted the construction of factories in Mexico by Chinese companies looking to sell cars in the US Mexico could have been hurt during tariff negotiations with Washington if it gave the impression of welcoming Chinese businesses.

Meanwhile, the European Union has set its own standards in a bid to keep Chinese players out, giving preference to compact electric vehicles.

Even when faced with such walls, BYD has little choice but to keep expanding overseas, as the rapid growth in domestic sales that fueled its investment has come to a halt.

The automaker sold about 3.5 million passenger vehicles in China last year, down roughly 10% from 2024. Sales for the July-September quarter sank 3% on the year to RMB 194.9 billion (USD 28.2 billion), the first decline in 22 quarters.

Free cash flow sank to minus RMB 44 billion (USD 6.4 billion), the largest negative figure of the past 15 or so years. Lower free cash flow risks leaving the company with less capital to invest overseas.

To avoid trade friction, BYD is shifting from exports to local production. It is slated to open a passenger vehicle factory in Hungary as early as this year, following new plants in Thailand in 2024 and Brazil in 2025.

Other Chinese players also have picked up overseas production facilities from other automakers. Great Wall Motor acquired the site of a former Mercedes-Benz plant in Brazil, and Chery Automobile is buying plants in South Africa from Japan’s Nissan Motor.

China in 2023 surpassed Japan to become the world’s top auto exporter. Japanese automakers built more than 16 million vehicles overseas in 2024, but their Chinese competitors are catching up fast.

This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.

Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.92 = USD 1 based on estimates as of March 10, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.