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Comment by diebeforei485 | Hacker News Reader

It's not in their interest to do so. Tesla is the EV leader and exports many vehicle from China to other countries. Additionally, Elon has a direct line to Trump, it makes no sense to burn bridges.

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In what sense is Tesla the EV leader? BYD sold 4.3M EVs last year and is up 40% from 2023. Tesla only sold 1.8M and is down from 2023.

From where I’m sitting, Elon is very lucky the US government is protecting his business with tariffs, but that only affects US sales. They haven’t made a new car since 2020 either (cyber truck doesn’t count).

Most of those BYD numbers are hybrids.

58.5% of BYD vehicles were PHEV in 2024. BYD still made more pure EV than Tesla in 2024.

https://www.statista.com/chart/33709/tesla-byd-electric-vehi...

Those aren't the numbers here though.

Pretty much every time people mention BYD EV numbers, they add hybrids.

I see it as intent to mislead.

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/01/02/rebirth-of-the-phev-wha...

I'm not disputing the BYD lead. Just numbers that add hybrids.

Most of those BYDs are sitting in a field rotting, it's just to make sales look good. They just go park them in a field. Total waste.

The numbers I am quoting are sales, not numbers produced. Are you saying people are buying their cars but not using them? If so, who, and why?

Yes the cars are "purchased" and left sitting in a field to bump up the sales numbers... I can't remember exactly how they do it, but its purely to boost the sales numbers likely to get more govt subsidies

They have the best technology and the highest EV margins.

By analogy: Apple doesn't sell the most smartphones but they are clearly the leader in the smartphone market.

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