Chinese company BYD is now the biggest electric vehicle maker in the world, beating out Tesla!  So let’s compare the two, shall we?

There’s a new electric vehicle champ in town and that’s Warren Buffett-backed Chinese automaker BYD.

BYD is reporting that it sold a whopping 526,000 “battery only” electric vehicles in the last quarter of 2023. For comparison, Tesla, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, sold 484,000 cars during that period.

However, even though BYD sold more cars than Tesla in the last quarter, Tesla still won for the year. Tesla delivered nearly 2 million fully electric cars to its customers compared to BYD’s 1.5 million.

On the other hand, BYD’s sales grew more than Tesla’s. BYD’s sales of fully electric vehicles grew 73% last year, compared to 38% for Tesla.

Additionally, the Chinese company sold 1.4 million hybrids, a 52% increase from the year before.

Unfortunately, Tesla suffered from slower demand despite repeated price cuts.

And critics are now saying that it seems less likely that Tesla can live up to CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious growth targets in the coming years.

The stock is still trading at 39% below its all-time high.  It closed at $237.49 on January 5.  

So should Tesla be worried?  Or do you have faith in Elon Musk?  Let me know in the comments.

And that’s the bottom line.