Tesla lost the crown of the world’s biggest EV maker to China’s BYD for the first time, as the company’s shares slipped on Friday after reporting a 16% decline in deliveries in the final quarter of 2025, ending the year with 600,000 fewer deliveries than its Chinese rival.
Key Facts
- In its fourth-quarter production report, the company said it manufactured 434,358 vehicles and delivered 418,227 in the fourth quarter of 2025—a 16% decline compared to the same period in 2024.
- The number of deliveries fell short of Wall Street estimates of 426,000, according to CNBC.
- Tesla said it delivered 1.63 million cars in 2025, down by more than 8.5% from the previous year.
- On Thursday, China’s BYD reported that its EV sales rose 28% last year to 2.26 million units—beating Tesla’s annual sales for the first time ever.
- BYD had fallen just short of Tesla’s numbers last year, reporting 1.76 million deliveries compared to the American carmaker’s 1.79 million.
- Tesla’s stock fell over 3% as of Friday afternoon, continuing a streak of losses over the last five days of trading in which shares have tumbled over 10%.
Big Number
4.54 million. That is the total number of passenger vehicles BYD delivered in 2025 as, unlike Tesla, the Chinese carmaker also makes plug-in hybrids. The company’s EV deliveries nearly eclipsed its hybrid deliveries this year, which saw a decline from 2.48 million to 2.28 million.
What Has Elon Musk Said About Byd?
In a now infamous interview with Bloomberg TV in 2011, Musk laughed when asked about competition from BYD, as the host mentioned billionaire Warren Buffett’s investment in the company. Musk responded, “Have you seen their car?” before adding, “I don’t think they have a great product…I don’t think it’s particularly attractive; the technology is not very strong, and BYD as a company has some pretty severe problems in their home turf in China.” The Tesla CEO then said BYD’s primary focus should be ensuring they don’t die in China. The billionaire changed his tone in 2021 while addressing the World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Hainan, China. “I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers for driving these (EV) technologies,” Musk said at the time. In a January 2023 Tesla earnings call, Musk said, Chinese carmakers “work the hardest and they work the smartest…And so, if I were to guess…probably some company out of China is the most likely to be second to Tesla.” In another earnings call, a year later, Musk’s tone was more alarming as he warned that if there are no trade barriers established, [on Chinese EVs] they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world.”
Key Background
Tesla’s sales slump in 2025 caps off a challenging year for the company. Musk’s financial support for President Donald Trump’s election campaign and his work leading the White House’s federal cost-cutting efforts under DOGE drew significant public backlash against the billionaire and his companies. Tesla cars, in particular, were targeted with protests, boycott calls, and vandalism. Musk’s very public fallout with Trump later in the year didn’t help his company either, as the president’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill included a provision to scrap the $7,500 federal credit for electric vehicles starting in September.
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This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
