Once mistaking it for a joke, Elon Musk now fears THIS Chinese EV maker

Elon Musk’s Tesla was the best-selling EV car brand of 2022, beating out legends such as Toyota and Honda, two brands that have ruled the numbers game in traditional ICE cars, as well as EVs and hybrids for a long time. However, Musk has some serious reasons to worry. In his own words, he now believes that instead of a legacy motor vehicle brand, it is a new-age Chinese EV brand that poses the biggest threat to Tesla.

There was once a time when Musk considered the same EV brand to be a joke. In an old interview, from 2011, Musk was asked what he thought of BYD, the Chinese EV car maker. To this, Musk replied, saying “Have you seen their cars?” and laughed out loud. Over the years, however, Musk’s position on BYD has changed, significantly.

Tesla, the best-selling car brand of 2022
According to data published by market research company JATO Dynamics on Friday, the Tesla Model Y electric crossover achieved the status of the world’s best-selling car in the first quarter of this year. Surpassing Toyota’s RAV4 and Corolla models, the Model Y became the first all-electric vehicle to secure the top spot in global sales rankings.

During the first three months of the year, the Model Y sold 267,200 units worldwide, outperforming the Corolla, which sold 256,400 units, and the RAV4, which sold 214,700 units in the same period. This represents a substantial year-on-year increase of approximately 69 per cent for the Model Y.

Notably, the Model Y achieved this feat despite its starting price of $47,490, significantly higher than the Corolla ($21,550) and the RAV4 ($27,575).

Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed confidence in the Model Y’s success even before its launch, estimating back in 2016 that it would generate demand in the range of 500,000 to 1 million units per year.

Experts consider this achievement as a significant milestone for Tesla, highlighting that the company’s dominance in the market is facilitated by the relatively sluggish competition among electric-vehicle automakers.

In the first quarter of 2023, Tesla reported delivering over 400,000 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles to customers.

Musk’s changed perceptions about BYD
When the aforementioned video popped up on Twitter again, Musk made it a point to tweet out, saying that it was an old interview and that his perspective has changed significantly. Moreover, in January this year, when he was asked which car maker was Tesla’s biggest challenger, Musk mentioned that it was a Chinese brand.

Musk did not reveal the name of the EV maker, but said of them, “They work the hardest and they work the smartest. And so if I were to guess, probably some company out of China is the most likely to be second to Tesla.”

“Their cars are highly competitive these days,” Musk wrote about BYD recently. To be fair, though, lots of things have changed since that interview. Tesla themselves have grown from an EV startup into the world’s leading EV maker and the most valuable automaker.

Why does Elon Musk respect BYD?
If we talk about numbers and only consider the number of cars in total that are sold, BYD beats Tesla fair and square, by a mile. However, BYD also includes a number of plug-in hybrids with their complete battery EV or New Energy Vehicle as it is called in China.

Even then, BYD has undergone a significant transformation, transitioning from producing unremarkable cars to becoming a leading player in China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) market. Moreover, the company has been rapidly expanding its presence globally.

In 2022, BYD achieved global sales of over 1.85 million plug-in electric vehicles, with 946,238 of those being BEVs. This sales performance is not far behind Tesla, which delivered 1.3 million BEVs worldwide during the same period.

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