Sukses Salip Tesla di 2025, BYD Jadi Raja EV Dunia meski Penjualan Mulai Melambat

JAKARTA - Tesla lost its title as the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world in 2025, after being overtaken by China's BYD. Tesla's loss follows a second consecutive year of declining vehicle sales, as reported by a number of international media earlier this year from BBC, Reuters, to Forbes.

But from the side of BYD itself is also not too encouraging by closing December 2025 with a performance that is quite surprising. The largest new energy vehicle (NEV) manufacturer in China recorded global sales of passenger vehicles of 414,784 units.

Launching from Carnewschina, Saturday, January 3, the figure fell 18.6 percent year on year (year on year/YoY) and weakened 12.7 percent compared to November. This is the fourth consecutive YoY decline for BYD.

In the midst of the slowdown, the overseas market has actually become a support for BYD. BYD's export sales in December reached 133,172 units, jumping 133 percent YoY and becoming the company's highest monthly record.

In detail, BYD booked sales of 190,712 pure electric vehicles (BEVs) in December, down 8.2 percent YoY. This is the first annual decline since 2025 and only the third YoY decline in BYD's BEV sales in the past five years.

Two previous declines occurred in February 2024 due to the impact of the Chinese New Year holiday and July 2024. Meanwhile, sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) reached 224,072 units, down 25.7 percent YoY.

This trend marks a nine-month consecutive decline since April. It should be noted that BYD has stopped selling pure gasoline-powered cars since April 2022, focusing entirely on BEVs and PHEVs.

Throughout 2025, BYD sold 4,550,036 passenger vehicles, up 7.1 percent compared to 2024. Despite growing, this rate is much more moderate compared to the double-digit, even triple-digit spikes enjoyed by the company since 2021.

Of the total, BEV sales reached 2,254,714 units (up 27.9 percent), while PHEV was recorded at 2,288,709 units (down 7.9 percent). The sales composition also changed significantly, BEV now accounts for 49.6 percent of BYD's total sales in 2025, up from 41.5 percent in 2024 and PHEV contributing 50.4 percent.

Foreign performance is the main spotlight. For the first time, BYD sales outside China have exceeded 1 million units, namely 1,046,083 vehicles, jumping 150.7 percent compared to the previous year.

If combined with commercial vehicles and buses, BYD's total sales in December reached 420,398 units, with an accumulated 4,602,436 units throughout 2025. Initially, BYD set an ambitious target of 5.5 million units for 2025, and even speculation that the target of 6.5 million units was later revised to 4.6 million units in September.

However, the challenges ahead are expected to be more severe. China's domestic market is weakening, as the government's scrutiny of aggressive discount strategies, as well as increased competition from other manufacturers offering affordable EVs with competitive quality, such as Geely and Leapmotor.

Going forward, BYD's performance in 2026 will depend heavily on global expansion. But, it is also predicted to be quite tough, and whether BYD is able to capture the hearts and wallets of consumers outside of China.