The Chinese car company beating Tesla | The Global Story

追加: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Has America lost the race to make electric vehicles? Tesla is no longer the world's top seller of electric cars?

[00:00:08]Elon Musk car company is now lagging behind a Chinese rival that many Americans may have never heard of called BYD. Despite being effectively shut out of the US market, China has quietly become the global powerhouse of EV production, leading the industry in technology, innovation, and affordability. How did this happen?

[00:00:30]Well, we're going to dive into all of it today on the show from the BBC. I'm Asma Khaled and welcome to the global story on YouTube.

[00:00:43]My name is Suran Janatari. Uh I'm the BBC's Asia Business Correspondent. So, I travel all around the Asia Pacific uh covering uh business, economics, and technology news. and I also provide analysis for all of our BBC platforms on uh what's going on in the world of business and economics.

[00:01:02]>> Well, wonderful. I'm excited to have you on our show today and I will say our program, The Global Story, is about where the world and America meet and I I really wanted to have you on because I've been so intrigued with the success of BYD, especially in comparison to Tesla. Uh, I will say that I was recently in Morocco and I saw a BYD dealership in an upscale neighborhood and it caught me off guard because here in the US you don't see BYD by like all Chinese EVs are effectively barred from the United States. Um, so let me just start by asking, have you been in one?

[00:01:37]What's a BYD car actually look like?

[00:01:40]Actually, I have because um I'm based in Singapore and BYD has been selling cars and actually a lot of the cabs that we book on our ride hailing apps nowadays are BYDs and I must tell you that it's a really smooth journey. I mean EVs in general are a smoother um ride than uh you know traditional combustion engines.

[00:02:00]But in this part of the world, Southeast Asia is a huge market for BYD. And in case you didn't know what BYD stands for, it's actually build your dreams.

[00:02:08]So, it's an interesting spin on the so-called American dream and um how the US used to be the center of the global auto industry and that's really shifted to China now.

[00:02:20]>> How much does a BYD vehicle cost? So Asma, you can actually get a BYD in London for anything from about $25,000 US to $60,000 US, but they are targeting uh you know a more affordable sort of uh price range as well. And that's one of the really interesting things with the development of electric vehicles.

[00:02:44]Initially, it was very expensive to develop, but China seems to have really gamed that. and um they are producing companies aside from BYD but as well as BYD are producing very very affordable uh cars but having said that it's about market access as well for example you can't buy a BYD in the US probably unless you're very rich and you're not telling us uh because there are tariffs uh and tariffs on electric vehicles in the US are about 100% so you're paying uh you know a huge amount of money for an EV And that's one of the reasons you don't see BYDs on the roads in America as much as other parts of the world.

[00:03:26]>> Sera, how is a Chinese EV, say if we're talking about BYD, uh, but in other Chinese EVs, how are they different from Tesla, which is the electric vehicle car car company that so many of us know here in the US?

[00:03:39]>> Well, they're the same technology.

[00:03:41]They're fully electric vehicles as opposed to hybrids. But what BYD has managed to do um ever since it's been producing cars uh for globally is that it's really honed in on that uh electric vehicle technology plus the software that drives it. Um and that's something that Tesla is also very good at. But because uh of the way that China's industrial policy is set up, uh BYD manages manages to keep manufacturing costs very very low. And that's why its cars are so affordable. The Chinese uh government has uh for many years now since the early 2000s has said that electric vehicles are going to be the future. Of course, China had a lot of issues with pollution and things like that. So uh they really focused on cleaning up uh their vehicles and the air as a result of that. And so they provided a lot of subsidies and a lot of government support incentives for these companies to uh develop this what they call new energy vehicle technology. And that's why you see so many Chinese companies making electric vehicles because it's very easy there. And then there's the innovation factor as well.

[00:04:55]When you give that much support to these companies, they continue to innovate.

[00:05:00]And that's why you see um you know some of these Chinese uh car makers making the fastest car in the world which is now a BYD by the way um or the most fuel uh the most energy efficient rather uh and uh the best battery chargers as well which has long been a big challenge for EV adoption around the world. I mean, it's so striking to hear you talk about the ground swell of support uh at a government level there in China because uh I don't know much you followed this, but during the Biden administration, there was something known as the inflation reduction act who whose mission it was was to sort of boost um electric vehicle purchases, electric vehicle manufacturing here in the United States. And long story short, I I covered American politics for a while.

[00:05:43]It was an extraordinarily controversial move and there was not sort of uh unanimous consensus amongst Republicans and Democrats for this push.

[00:05:52]>> Absolutely. And this is one of the areas that electric vehicles have not just become sort of a business issue, but they become a trade issue. They've become a geopolitical issue as well.

[00:06:03]Now, one of the reasons for the inflation reduction act was because China had taken so much manufacturing away from America. So there wasn't much production, there wasn't much export-led growth um from America as a result.

[00:06:18]>> Uh but having said that, you know, for these US automakers that were trying to develop this electrical vehicle technology, China is also a huge market.

[00:06:27]I mean uh I was there just a few weeks ago. I actually was there to cover an auto uh an auto show which has now become the largest auto show in the world. And uh >> the Beijing auto show, I saw some of your reports. That's right.

[00:06:45]>> We're at Auto China, now the largest car show in the world. Nearly a thousand companies are exhibiting here in a space that's the equivalent of more than 50 football fields. You know, there you could see that, you know, it was a huge um expanse of area where this was being held. Like I was clocking up 17,000 steps a day just going from booth to booth. Um but all the uh Chinese and foreign car makers were exhibiting their latest models and there was so much buzz around the Chinese car makers whereas the foreign car makers both the US the Japanese the Europeans there wasn't as much buzz and um that's really interesting because there is this kind of dilemma for those US automakers. They want to be able to develop this uh this technology and compete with Chinese car makers. But also, China is a huge market for them. It's um the second largest consumer economy after the US. And uh frankly, what I saw was that they've really fallen behind in this electric vehicle race, especially people are opting for Chinese cars uh as opposed to US cars that have this EV technology.

[00:08:00]and they're recognizing this as well.

[00:08:01]What was really striking there was the number of ordinary families who were coming to a industry event. You know, uh in the past it was a very businessto business kind of auto show, but I saw you know parents bringing their children to show them the cars uh to show them the latest technology and the latest models and the children were really excited by it. it was an event and that just told me that this uh sort of electric vehicle drive and this uh innovation in terms of um autos is a lifestyle.

[00:08:36]>> So it sounds like the Chinese EV companies were really getting a lot of attention at this auto show and we've said that BYD has kind of become the hit EV brand globally. So I want to understand where this company got its start from. Where when did this happen?

[00:08:54]>> BYD actually started making B by making batteries back in the early 2000s and then um they kind of realized that with the government push towards electric vehicles and new technologies and future technologies that there might be something in making electric vehicles.

[00:09:09]They started off by making uh regular vehicles but funnily enough those um you know traditional combustion engine uh vehicles they were not very wellreceived and um that's when they got an expert who had worked um in uh companies like Volkswagen to come on board and he actually helped uh develop the first electric vehicles and even then you know they weren't innovating uh at the same pace as other companies at that stage.

[00:09:39]What time period was this?

[00:09:40]>> This was um this was around the 2010s.

[00:09:43]>> So >> 2010. Okay.

[00:09:45]>> But it wasn't until sort of 2020 that BYD went global and started selling electric vehicles that were received very well.

[00:09:54]>> And uh as I mentioned, you know, uh uh they've now overtaken Tesla. They're selling they're the top vehicles EV um seller in the world even though it's not available in the US. uh the BYDs other markets are doing extremely well Latin America, Middle East, Europe and um it can survive without the US market >> and I think the state backing that we've already talked about really contributed to that. It meant that these companies were able to grow. It was it meant that they were able to innovate very fast and actually I visited an EV factory not BYDs um Neo which is another top car seller uh within China. It's a very big company. It targets the luxury um market a little bit more. And I could see with my own eyes why these companies were able to roll out models so fast. The factory was fully fully automated. I can't tell you how few workers were inside there. And so the innovation is not just in the products that these Chinese companies are making. It's also in how they make those products as well.

[00:10:59]What I saw here in China was literally different models floating around on these uh robots. They were just moving from station to station getting doors attached and getting windshields attached and uh all sorts of different things but completely autonomously. You know, it's all programmed. Uh it's and that allows them to turn out a lot of products very fast and in a very very controlled way.

[00:11:26]You spoke with this BYD executive at the Beijing Auto Show who essentially told you that it sounds like they don't think they need the US market to survive. Am I understanding that correctly? That's right. Stella Lee is essentially BYD's global spokesperson. She is an executive vice president, but she's the one that talks to media around the world. And yes, she was at the auto show and I I managed to speak to her. And I started by asking her how uh BYD hopes to meet the rising demand for electric vehicles in in light of the Iran war and those rising oil prices.

[00:12:04]>> Our demand is much higher than what we can supply also especially after we introduce flash charging. It's a really big game changer.

[00:12:12]>> Now she did say that they are having to relook at their um production capacity because the demand has gone up so much.

[00:12:19]But she did say that, you know, >> since the Iran war, she >> since the Iran war. That's right.

[00:12:23]>> When the oil price increasing, then the electricity car, EV car can help them save the like money every day.

[00:12:30]>> But she said they're working on uh building up that capacity. And uh she's very confident that they will be able to do that because they're so used to scaling up. And don't forget as well that you know every um second car sold in China already is an electric vehicle.

[00:12:49]So these companies have got a history of being able to scale up for a very big market. But the real nuance here um Asma is actually that >> perceptions have changed around Chinese companies as well. Partly because Chinese companies are just making better vehicles. They've learned a lot from the foreign car makers or the foreign retail retailers who have been manufacturing in the country already. They have those ecosystems that we've already talked about that are very ingrained in the industrial sort of setup there.

[00:13:21]>> BYD is very complex because we will deliver all the technology solving consumers needs.

[00:13:28]>> Is it less about the cars now and more about the charging infrastructure? Yeah, less about the car is more about the ecosystem is more about the total solution. This also make BYD different.

[00:13:38]That's always in my spee by not a car, it's a BYD. People are recognizing that these are really quite good products.

[00:13:46]They're some of the best electric vehicles in the car in in the world rather and that the technology which is the sort of the the bread and butter of these um types of vehicles is really excellent as well. So, you've been saying that electric vehicle car companies in China are doing really well. I recall that President Biden effectively barred these sorts of vehicles from China to come from coming into the US uh both with a combination of national security measures and then uh 100% tariff. What did those measures mean for a company like BYD? The idea that the United States has tried to build a kind of protective wall around itself.

[00:14:28]>> Yeah. I mean it means that the that BYYD cannot access the world's largest consumer market because uh the US is not only does not want electric vehicles uh in the US because it you know Donald Trump especially thinks that that will take jobs that is taking jobs away from the US but there are these national security concerns because essentially these cars are smartphones on wheels and there is a great deal of concern that if these Chinese companies are able to deploy these cars in the US that they are also able to control people's devices and as I mentioned it's all it's uh an ecosystem right it's something that at the end of the day is connected to your phone it's connected to your home uh and it's connected to your car and there's a great deal of um concern that that's a national security risk having said that um US automakers again are also very skeptical of these um EV uh giants from China being able to access the US market because they're really worried for their US sales as a result of that. They're seeing in the UK that uh EV sales are going up as well.

[00:15:39]They're seeing in Europe that it's going up. They're seeing in Latin America and Canada are letting in these Chinese um EVs as well. And they're very concerned uh about the US market. One of our producers in prepping for this story pointed out a sort of remarkable stat, which is that Chinese-owned brands now make up 1 in seven new UK cars, which I just thought was a really um really astounding statistic. Uh that 5 years ago, he said it was about 1.3%. I mean, that's a rather dramatic amount of growth that that these companies are making uh in the United Kingdom and presumably they're also on quite a role selling cars in in Europe as well.

[00:16:16]>> Yeah. And I will say that these companies are also marketing themselves in a very different way. One of the things I saw at the um at the auto show was hundreds and hundreds of influencers uh promoting models, but these Chinese companies are also leveraging that that social media sort of reach and saying here's a great car. This is uh you know this is what it can do. So I think these Chinese companies when where they've been quite traditional in the past in terms of how they market themselves, they've also changed. They're also um picking up on trends as well. And um that's really worked in places like the UK alongside those higher fuel costs, people um becoming more concerned about the environment and looking to electric vehicles. And again, the price point is very um important in the UK, especially with rising inflation. Yeah. All of these foreign competitors are have have realized that China has pulled ahead in the EV race and uh even though they've been developing the technology, they uh want to make good EVs. Uh again, they haven't had the perhaps government backing or they haven't had access to markets that they've needed to be as successful as the Chinese competitors.

[00:17:31]for uh decades it was known that the Japanese make the best cars in the world but they uh essentially what it's seeming like is that they bet on the wrong technology because they really focused on hybrid technology. What we're seeing is uh especially with those high oil prices that people want to go fully electric. An executive from Honda was touring a Chinese factory recently uh a Chinese car factory and he said we can't compete. we've, you know, China has won won their race. We can't compete with this kind of thing. So, uh I think >> because the technology seemed just so superior or because what the scale of it >> I think that the Chinese bet on the right technology at the right time and they have innovated. Now, I will say as well that Donald Trump has sort of said in a recent trip to Detroit has said that he would like Chinese EVs to be available in the US, but only >> that was a real alarm bell sign though I will say to some lawmakers here, right?

[00:18:30]especially because he made those comments in the the auto manufacturing capital of the US. And I will say sir and John ahead of his trip to China, you had Republican and Democratic lawmakers really nervous that maybe he would open the door possibly just a wee bit to to Chinese car makers.

[00:18:50]>> Absolutely. And I would be very surprised if electric vehicles aren't part of the discussions in those trade negotiations. Really, >> the problem is that these Chinese manufacturers again, their ecosystem is so set up in China, they're able to uh work very fast. They're able to push out products uh a large volume of products very fast. It doesn't always translate over to the US. Now run in the run-up to that um to that historic meeting between uh President C and Donald Trump, we did hear that there could be some promise of investment in the US and we thought that um you know it could be around uh Chinese electric vehicles or perhaps battery technology because that's the other area that China is really speeding ahead. You know, some of these companies like BYD were battery makers um initially and BYD actually launched at the auto show um this very fast charging technology. That's one of the problems with electric vehicles is that for big distances you need to continue charging your car. Now um this fast charging technology, it's called flash charging uh that BYD um launched at the um auto show. That takes your battery to about 70% within 5 minutes. That's remarkable.

[00:20:08]>> And um they say that you're able to uh drive about 400 kilometers on that char that amount of charge. So that's a real gamecher. You mentioned President Trump's recent trip to Beijing and his comments earlier this year where he seemed to suggest that maybe under certain conditions and within certain parameters, he might be open to some Chinese car companies possibly working in the United States. But nonetheless, it's a somewhat politically toxic thing to say out loud in our politics. I mean, I I think back to Trump himself when he was running for president in 2024. He went to Detroit and was singing a very different tune. In other words, I kept China cars, Chinese cars out of America, and we had to do it because when they come in, they take over everything. And you would have had no car manufacturing at all.

[00:21:08]>> And he's not alone. You know, we've recently seen uh bipartisan legislation, Democrats and Republicans, team up to essentially put forth laws that would completely ban Chinese EVs from the US market. Um, you know, ahead of our interview, Sern, I was just doing some prep and I came across a report in Politico that was quoting Democratic Congressman Don Byer from Virginia saying, and I'm going to quote him here.

[00:21:33]He says, "The only thing that terrifies me is BYD. The fact that it's so inexpensive would destroy every other car company's investment in electric vehicles. And so I guess I just wonder how realistic it is to enter the US market. Are you seeing cracks around the walls that the US has built to keep Chinese EVs out?

[00:21:56]>> It's kind of a double-edged sword because uh what was very clear at the Beijing Auto Show is that China is winning the EV race. It's uh it's very clear. So even though the US has these concerns around manufacturing, around national security, it's actually losing out because China is very much at the center of the global auto industry, not just the global EV industry today. Now, uh I spoke to BYD's global spokesperson um Stella Lee and she said that she can manage without the US market and that's because the demand is rising in other big markets like Southeast Asia, Latin America, um uh Canada as well as Europe.

[00:22:40]So these Chinese companies are going full steam ahead. They're moving on to the next frontier of technology. So all of them are developing humanoid robots, autonomous driving, whether it's for personal cars or for robo taxis. And uh Xpang, which is a a huge Chinese uh EV maker, is actually developing a flying taxi. And the >> flying taxi, it's like the Jetson, >> the flying car. I saw it with my own eyes. Um now you know the founder told me that he's um looking at manufacturing these flying taxis uh sometime next year and I asked him why >> do they really fly though? I just want to understand this >> they literally they literally come out another vehicle and they take off vertically. Yes, it looks like a helicopter but it's a car. Um and I asked the founder of Xpong um you know why he's developing this technology because surely electric vehicles there's still more market share to gain and he said within China within 3 years these technologies are going to be completely applied in the real world and that's why we need to move in that direction. It sounds like you're saying that the the rules, the tariffs that the US has put in place have not ultimately prevented Chinese EVs from taking off that they they really are taking off regardless of what the US is doing. Are you suggesting the US market is not relevant to them?

[00:24:09]It's not that it's not relevant. is still a huge consumer market, but in the face of these types of uh controls over access to the US market, China is recalibrating its approach and it's saying, "Hey, we've got lots of other markets. We heard it from Stella Lee herself, the BYD global spokesperson.

[00:24:27]We've got all these other markets where we can sell to. Um we're doing very well there. We're expanding our capacity in order to meet the demand. And on top of that um we are uh developing these new technologies, the battery charging infrastructure, the uh robots, the uh autonomous vehicles in order to survive and to continue doing well in the future.

[00:24:49]>> Well, on that note, Serena, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.

[00:24:53]>> Thanks a lot.

[00:24:54]>> That's it for The Global Story on YouTube today. Thanks for tuning in. And if you liked what you saw and heard today, then I've got to mention that The Global Story is also an audio podcast.

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