BYD's battery electric vehicle sale in Europe is significantly exaggerated

$BYD COMPANY(01211.HK)$ $Tesla(TSLA.US)$ $NIO Inc(NIO.US)$ $XPeng(XPEV.US)$ The article showed that the widely touted invasion of Europe’s battery electric vehicle (BEV) market by BYD is significantly exaggerated. The analysis cites 7 points:

1. It’s still early days, but sales data suggest a slow start for BYD.

2. BYD sold only 1,341 BEVs across 10 major European markets for which registration data is available. See Chart 1.

3. For the first two months, BYD’s market share comes in at 0.8% (trailing 12-months 1.1%). See Chart 2.

4. Unlike what media appears to be portraying, it doesn’t look as if European consumers are quick to adopt a largely unknown Chinese brand just because of a competitive price point.

5. BYD’s significant [home market success] is largely rooted in extremely high volume and ultra low-cost vehicles serving mostly a low-income segment of the market (by European standards).

6. With this pedigree, conquering a wealthier European clientele may turn out to be much harder since, the higher the price segment, the more ‘intangible’ product qualities matter to consumers.

7. I put [home market success] in square brackets since analysis of BYD’s financial statements suggests that BYD is barely making any money from selling automobiles. Hence, ‘home market success’ might be an overstatement. It appears that BYD generates most profits from their large batteries business. BYD is amongst the top battery makers globally.

Comment: If buyers want to consider lower end brands, there are more preferred choice like VW Group’s VW, Skoda and Seat; Stellantis’ Opel/Vauxhall, Peugeot, Fiat, Citroen, DS, and Lancia; Hyundai and Kia; Nissan; Mazda; and Honda. Elon Musk recently announced Tesla's $25k 'Redwood' production in early 2025.