Chinese BYD overtook Ford to become the sixth-largest automaker in the world in terms of sales

The confrontation between Tesla and BYD for the title of the largest electric vehicle manufacturer attracted public attention a year ago, when the Chinese company managed to temporarily surpass Tesla on a global scale. In China, BYD has long been the largest automaker, but in the world rankings this company reached sixth place only in the third quarter.

Image source: BYD

At least, this is what the compilers of the MarkLines rating insist on, the data of which is cited by the Nikkei Asian Review resource. In the third quarter, BYD managed to sell 1.13 million passenger cars, and these were exclusively hybrids and electric vehicles. For the first time, BYD managed to sell more than a million cars within one quarter, and in annual comparison this result was 38% higher than last year.

In terms of MarkLines rankings, BYD managed to become the first Chinese manufacturer to surpass the Big Three, which individually have a history of more than a hundred years. BYD was able to supplant Ford Motor and take sixth place in the world rankings.

Among Chinese manufacturers, the second place was taken by the Geely holding, which has more than ten brands that are more or less well-known outside of China. Having sold 820,000 cars in the third quarter, Geely showed sales volume growth of 14% year-on-year. Geely’s success was largely driven by Zeekr’s sales statistics for luxury electric vehicles. As a result, Geely ended up not in ninth place in the world ranking, ahead of Nissan Motor, but behind Honda Motor. This year, for the first time, two Chinese automakers made it into the top ten global leaders based on the results of the third quarter.

Chery was in 12th place, and together with BYD and Chery, it showed a 27% increase in sales volumes to 550,000 vehicles. During the same time, German Mercedes-Benz sold 590,000 cars, so the sales growth dynamics of Chinese companies is simply impressive.

At the same time, Japanese Toyota Motor continues to remain the largest automaker in the world, but its sales volumes in the third quarter decreased by 4% to 2.73 million units. In second place is the German concern Volkswagen, which is experiencing a serious crisis, whose sales volumes in the third quarter decreased by 7% to 2.17 million cars. South Korean Hyundai Motor took third place, but its sales volumes decreased by 3% to 1.77 million vehicles due to growing competition from Chinese automakers.

Multinational concern Stellantis faced a 20% decline in sales to 1.14 million vehicles in the third quarter, largely due to problems in the North American market, and this was one of the reasons for the recent resignation of its head Carlos Tavares. Old-timers of the market as a whole are going through difficult times. The same Stellantis will lay off 1,100 people at its enterprises in the United States, Nissan will reduce car production by 20% worldwide and lay off 9,000 employees, which corresponds to 7% of its full-time workforce. Honda is going to reduce the production volume of models with internal combustion engines at its Chinese plant from 1.49 million to 960 thousand units per year. Volkswagen will have to close at least three plants in Germany and lay off tens of thousands of employees.

The global auto industry is currently experiencing a transformational moment that requires large investments, but some market participants react too slowly to changes in market conditions, which is why they are forced to incur losses and receive less funds for business restructuring. At the same time, BYD, as expected, while maintaining high sales growth rates in Latin America and Southeast Asia, can claim fifth position in the ranking of the world’s largest automakers based on the results of the current quarter.