BYD’s latest battery charges from 20% to 97% in under 12 minutes, even in minus 20°C temperatures, and delivers a range of 777 kilometres. At the Beijing Auto Show on Friday, executive vice president Stella Li said this is the key to unlocking the last group of holdout drivers. “Flash charging is so important for BYD because this solves the last barrier for EV adoption,” Li told Reuters. “This means we now can compete with the gas market.”
The company plans to roll out around 20,000 flash-charging stations across China and 6,000 stations overseas over the next 12 months.
BYD’s domestic story has shifted from one of unstoppable growth to visible strain. Sales have fallen for seven straight months in China as competition from Geely, Leapmotor, and others has intensified. Geely briefly pushed BYD to fourth place in January and February and is reportedly targeting the top spot within 12 to 18 months.
The average discount on BYD vehicles reached a record 10% in March, according to China Auto Market data compiled by Bloomberg. Rivals including Geely and Chery have also increased discounts, keeping pressure across the board.
Under regulatory scrutiny, BYD has been moving away from delayed supplier payments, switching to interest-bearing debt instead. Its net debt-to-equity ratio has climbed to 25% after sitting in negative territory for four years.
The financial strain is showing up in earnings. BYD recently posted its first annual profit decline since the pandemic. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Wang Chuan-Fu called China’s auto industry a “brutal knockout stage.”
“The auto industry is facing enormous pressure,” said Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association.
Overcapacity is a structural problem adding to the pressure. China’s auto factories can produce 55.5 million vehicles per year, while domestic sales were around 23 million in 2025 — a utilisation rate of roughly 50%.
Outside China, BYD is moving fast. European sales rose 270% in 2025, and were up 156% in the first quarter of 2026. The company told analysts in March it was “highly confident” of hitting its 2026 overseas target of 1.5 million vehicles or more, after crossing the 1 million mark in 2025.
By 2030, BYD aims for half of all new-car sales to come from overseas markets. The company is expanding into Brazil, the UK, Australia, and Canada.
Still, the price war is following BYD abroad. Excess capacity in China is partly being absorbed through exports, which more than doubled to a record level in March. The EU and several Latin American countries have responded with tariff increases.
Analysts note that BYD’s position isn’t necessarily weak — it’s more that the bar is very high after years of rapid growth. “It’s not that BYD is necessarily doing badly,” said Gartner analyst Pedro Pacheco. “But they were growing so fast, where they are now seems bad.”
In 2025, BYD sold 4.6 million vehicles globally, up from 420,000 in 2020. It overtook Volkswagen as China’s top carmaker in 2024 and passed Tesla as the world’s top EV maker last year.
BYD’s stock has fallen 25% since peaking in late May 2025.
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