BYD’s plan to be the world’s biggest car brand

BYD is gunning to be the world’s top car brand, with key building blocks in 2025 including European production, the introduction of an entry-level hatch and the roll-out of autonomous driving to rival Tesla.

“Our goal is to be the global number one automotive brand,” said Stella Li, BYD’s executive vice president and boss of the European region. In 2025 BYD edged ahead of Tesla’s 1.788m EV sales, and produced a total of 4.272m ‘new energy vehicles’, which includes plug-in hybrids. There’s a way to go to overtake Toyota, though, which manufactured almost 11m vehicles in 2024.

Ms Li was in the UK to launch the BYD Sealion 7, a new five-seat EV with up to 312 miles of range and a starting price of £46,990. But she’s already looking ahead to the next new car.

BYD Dolphin Surf on track for UK launch

“The Dolphin Surf is definitely coming to the UK,” said Ms Li. That’s the European version of the Seagull, a Chinese electric city car that stunned the industry with a range exceeding 200 miles for around £10,000. 

The new name won’t be the only thing to change. “We need to make it more premium for Europe, so we will double the power to 130kW (175bhp).” That more than doubles the domestic Seagull’s 55kW (74bhp) motor, but there’s no word on whether the Dolphin Surf will get an enlarged battery: currently its biggest pack yields 39kWh.  

More premium positioning will mean a higher price in Europe: the new car will compete with the £15k Dacia Spring but with significantly more punch. To keep shipping costs down, it’s likely to be built in BYD’s lowest-cost production facility in Europe. 

Self-driving technology

BYD surprised rivals last month by rolling out its autopilot software across its entire range, in three tiers: God’s Eye A, B and C. This included the BYD Seagull, which has the entry-level God’s Eye C hardware and software offering hands-on Level 2 stop-and-go highway driving; it can also learn a frequently driven route such as a commute. 

“Every single car we produce has automatic driving,” Ms Li said. She said she’d used the system in multiple urban and highway scenarios in China, in places thronging with pedestrians and complicated driving patterns.

BYD’s autonomous driving systems will be in direct competition with Tesla – so does she think Elon Musk is taking his eyes off the road with his political distractions? “Elon Musk is a good promoter for innovation,” she diplomatically replied.

Plans to dominate the global car market

But she doesn’t see any car company holding back BYD’s bid for global leadership. “There’s a lot of competition in cars but BYD is not just a car company, we are a tech company. We produce batteries, 70 per cent of our components in-house and we have 120,000 R&D engineers. Put it all together and I don’t see anyone rivalling us.”

Construction of two European assembly plants and supplier parks is underway, with the Hungarian facility due to be on stream by the end of 2025 and Turkey following in the first half of next year.

With the ubiquity of BYD’s e-Platform 3.0 – the architecture underpinning everything from the 3780mm Seagull to the new 4830mm Sealion 7 – BYD plans to build a host of cars.

“Each facility will assemble four to six different models, covering the whole range,” Ms Li told Auto Express. “We will also produce the electric motors locally and lots of components.” It’s a big investment, she added.

Critically, given that take-up rates for electric cars differ around Europe, the factories will assemble both plug-in hybrid and pure electric models. BYD currently sells a 50:50 mix between EVs and PHEVs in Europe. 

BYD has already generated headlines around the world showing its new Super-e vehicle platform. Thanks to a 1000-volt electronic architecture, next-generation lithium iron phosphate battery tech and silicon carbide power microchips, the new electric architecture is claimed to charge at 1 megawatt (1000kW) or more than four times the 230kW charging capability of the new Sealion 7.

“Our goal is to make recharging as fast as refuelling a combustion engine,” said Ms Li. “It offers incredible charging speed, adding on average 2 kilometres of range every second or 400km (249 miles) in five minutes.”

In China, BYD has shown the Super-e platform under the new Han L saloon and Tang L SUV. “We will bring it to Europe,” Ms Li told Auto Express “but not soon”: it’s probably a couple of years away. 

The fast-charging benefits are all theoretical without a range of megawatt chargers: BYD will fund a 4,000-strong network in China but Ms Li would not commit to a similar programme for Europe.

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