BYD has taken Tesla's EV crown - here's how

In 2011, Elon Musk dismissed BYD as a threat. In a comment posted in X in response to a video of his 2011 Bloomberg interview, Musk said: "That was many years ago. Their cars are highly competitive these days."

BYD dethroned Tesla in the fourth quarter of 2023 as the top battery electric vehicle (BEV) maker, selling more battery-powered vehicles than Tesla.

BYD grew from a maker of mobile phone batteries to EV batteries. It became one of the biggest and the most vertically integrated electric car companies on the planet and is now expanding aggressively overseas.

The breakthrough with the Blade battery underlines why BYD has found success in EVs - strategic investments and the fact that it has more businesses than just cars.

It is the most vertically integrated EV maker with low costs, making almost 95% of the parts in-house. Its gross margin overtook Tesla's as the latter engaged in a price war.

Daniel Roeska, senior research analyst at Bernstein Research, told CNBC that there isn't a big driver of sales volumes in Tesla's car portfolio in the coming months. BYD on the other hand could see faster growth.

"BYD quite to the contrary is really pushing the pedal to the metal … by accelerating growth in Europe and other overseas markets. And so there is a lot more growth in the BYD story in the next 12 to 24 months for sure," Roeska said.