The Chinese EV firm, BYD, which is also partly owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, became the world’s largest electric vehicle producer in the first half of 2022, surpassing Tesla’s global electric vehicle sales. BYD sold 641,350 new electric vehicles in the first half of this year, compared to Tesla’s 564,743, company filings show. Global electric vehicle sales at BYD are also growing at a faster pace than at its American counterpart.
BYD Has Maintained a 46% Year-on-year Bump in the Global Electric Vehicle Sales
In the first six months of 2022, BYD sold 486,771 more cars than it did in the first half of 2021, representing an increase of 315%. Tesla, meanwhile, sold 178,693 more vehicles in the first half of this year compared to last, a 46% year-on-year bump in global electric vehicle sales. BYD’s stock price in Hong Kong has barely budged since the firm released the sales figures earlier this week. But investors have been high on BYD since the start of this year despite the bear market in the U.S. and a challenging environment in China.
BYD’s stock price has increased almost 25% since the start of this year. In that same timeframe, Tesla’s stock price in New York declined 42% along with its global electric vehicle sales. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was an early backer of BYD, pouring $232 million into the company in 2008. Now worth $7.7 billion, the investment is one of Berkshire’s most lucrative bets.
Tesla’s Sluggish Growth is Due to COVID-19 Lockdowns in Shanghai
Tesla has credited its sluggish growth early this year to COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai that disrupted production at its gigafactory near the city. “We [lost] a lot of important days of production. And there are sort of upstream supplier challenges where a lot of suppliers also lost many days of production,” Musk said in a quarterly earnings call in May.
Read more: Tesla Deliveries Drops by 18% Following the China Factory Shutdown
