Elon Musk has made no secret of his admiration for Chinese language electrical automobile makers and for the work ethic within the Asian nation, particularly after Tesla opened its first abroad automobile meeting plant in Shanghai in late 2019.

In January this 12 months, when requested to call the corporate’s hardest competitor, Tesla’s CEO replied “some firm out of China,” with out offering a reputation.

“They work the toughest and so they work the neatest. And so if I have been to guess, in all probability some firm out of China is the most probably to be second to Tesla,” Musk mentioned. He was in all probability referring to the likes of BYD, Nio and XPeng, to call only some of essentially the most outstanding EV makers from China.

Chances are high Musk was referring to BYD, China’s main EV maker, though his opinion of the Chinese language firm wasn’t at all times optimistic.

In a 2011 Bloomberg interview, Musk burst out laughing when the reporter advised BYD as a possible rival for Tesla within the electrical automobile area. “Have you ever seen their automotive?” Musk replied, including that he did not see BYD as a competitor in any respect. 

Nicely, greater than a decade later, Elon Musk has modified his thoughts about BYD. Responding to a snippet of the 2011 interview posted on Twitter, Musk clarified that plenty of issues modified since then, and BYD automobiles are actually very spectacular.

“That was a few years in the past. Their automobiles are extremely aggressive lately,” Musk wrote. In equity, a number of issues modified since 2011. Tesla has grown from an EV startup into the world’s main EV maker and essentially the most precious automaker by market capitalization.

Within the meantime, BYD has developed from making uninspiring automobiles to being the chief of China’s NEV (New Vitality Automobile) market and an organization that’s quickly increasing worldwide.

BYD really sells extra electrified automobiles than Tesla, although it must be mentioned that its gross sales statistics cumulate plug-in hybrids (PHEV) and battery-electric automobiles (BEV).

In 2022, BYD bought greater than 1.85 million plug-in electrical automobiles globally, 946,238 of which have been BEVs. That is not that far behind Tesla, which delivered 1.3 million BEVs worldwide final 12 months.